


fire on ice

by indianchai



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Elemental Affinity, M/M, Slow Burn, VictUuri, cute dorks in love, elemental powers, i promise there's nothing Bad, i will finish this i promise, i'm back from the dead, my bb, okay i'm changing the archive warnings just bc I want to be as obscure as possible, sorry for that last tag y'all but i promise it's worth it, the poor boy has to concentrate on not melting the ice, there's angst now whoops, yo yo it's me, yuuri is a fire user who wants to be an ice skater
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2018-09-22 08:11:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9595286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indianchai/pseuds/indianchai
Summary: Everyone in the world has some sort of affinity with one of the four elements; the proper term is elemental affinity– whether they are best suited with fire, water, earth, or air.All figure skaters are water users. Never in the history of the sport has there been a professional ice skater that didn't have water as his or her elemental affinity. Katsuki Yuuri has a well-guarded secret that he can't have anyone find out about.aka, the one where Yuuri can potentially decimate the rink every time he steps on ice, but no one can know. Especially Victor.





	1. episode 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading– it means a lot to me! Also if you want to leave a comment/drop a kudos/draw fanart that'd be really great (it fuels me lol)
> 
> If you have questions about how elemental affinity works, check the end notes!
> 
> hmu I'm lonely: [this is my tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)

It was a well-known fact that everyone had some sort of affinity with one of the four elements; the proper term was elemental affinity. There were never clear signs until one was about eleven years old –whether they were best suited with fire, water, earth, or air– but once it had been decided, it consumed every aspect of people's lives.

Even though most parents worldwide were sure to tell their children that it didn’t matter which element they were suited to, they couldn’t possibly deny that everything was loosely sorted into the four categories. Jobs, friends– even some familial ties were made with elemental affinity in mind.

Legally, people didn’t have to reveal what their elemental affinity was on government documents, job applications, or even publicly, but the practice was so rarely continued that most people forgot that was an option.

To put it simply, Katsuki Yuuri did not forget.

He had stumbled upon the ice rink at an early age –solely because of Minako’s insistence– making note of the cold and clumsily fighting to keep himself upright. His instructor had chuckled heartily, grabbing his hands and telling him to stop trying to walk and start trying to _glide_. And so he did. By the end of his first lesson, Yuuri was skating shaky circles around the rink– though he was far ahead of his peers. He liked the feel of the air whistling past his ears and the scratchy sounds coming from the ice when he went over it with his blades. The only thing he didn’t like was the deep chill that settled on his skin when it was all over and he had to depart from the ice.

His instructor insisted on speaking to his mother after the lesson was over, for reasons that Yuuri could not fathom.

“... he has natural talent like I've never seen before…” Yuuri had caught bits and pieces of the conversation. “He's definitely a water user, I’d say– all ice skaters are…”

His mother had been smiling proudly; she was as warm as the earth that she had an affinity for.

“His father will be so pleased,” he had heard his mother say. Yuuri’s father was an earth user as well, but he had always admired water.

“Water aids the earth,” he had said thoughtfully one night as Yuuri sat at his feet, gazing up at the stars from his spot on the wooden porch. “For that, we are grateful.”

Yuuri was older when he saw Victor Nikiforov skate for the first time. The skater was a water user; it was plain to see. The way he moved across the rink, with such grace– he looked like an ethereal god, come to gift all of mankind with his skating. Yuuri thought he could see the ice responding to the boy through the grainy quality of the television screen, pushing Victor forward, almost urging him on.

“Showing the true power of water users on ice, Victor Nikiforov has outdone himself once again!” An announcer was practically shouting into his microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are witnessing ice skating history!”

Yuuri had laughed giddily. He decided, then and there, that he would one day meet Victor on ice. His eleventh birthday was coming up soon, and he was prepared for his water powers to form, creating the extra strength he needed to elevate his skating routines.

Yuuri’s fingers had tingled with excitement. He couldn't wait to be a water user.

 

Unfortunately, whatever higher power there was that granted elemental affinity had different plans.

It had happened so quickly that Yuuri didn’t have time to process it. One morning, about a week after he turned eleven, he was making up a mathematics exam. He was the only one in the room –other than his teacher– and he was almost done. After he answered the last question, he sighed with relief, grasping the test with both of his hands, standing up to turn it in.

And then it happened.

Bright blue flames burst from his hands and he incinerated his paper. He was frozen to the spot, eyes transfixed upon the flames curling upon his hands, seemingly rising higher and higher, the charcoal ashes of his exam drifting slowly to the floor.

His teacher looked up. “Oh my goodness, Yuuri…”

She rushed over, hands filling with water. She placed his hands just over the flames, letting water fall from her open palms to Yuuri’s.

But the fire wouldn't stop.

The teacher’s eyes widened. “That's not supposed to happen… this was supposed to work!”

She knelt before him, looking at him in the eyes.

“Yuuri, only you can stop this. You have to control your powers. _Will_ the fire to stop. _Make_ it.”

Yuuri snapped out of his daze. He concentrated for a moment. The fire died down eventually, but very slowly, the flames slowly receding, seeping back into his skin.

His teacher seemed to breathe again. “Yuuri, come with me.”

“But my exam…” Yuuri managed to say weakly.

“I'll exempt it.” She looked down at Yuuri. “This is a… special case.”

“...the flames didn't recede when I put water on them…” Yuuri was sitting outside of the headmaster’s office, eavesdropping on the conversation. “We have to contact his family…”

His parents were devastated. Yuuri could hear his mother shouting through the thin walls of the office. “How is he supposed to ice skate after this? Who has ever heard of a fire user on ice?”

In that moment, Yuuri fully realized what he was. _A fire user_.

His mother was still shouting, he noted, a faint ringing pulsing in his ears.

They brought him inside once she had calmed down. When the headmaster said “fire user”, his parents visibly winced.

“I'm afraid there's more,” his teacher spoke up. “We think…” she glanced at the headmaster, in a silent argument. “Well, _I_ think that Yuuri has powers that are a bit… _rarer_ than regular fire users. I'd like have a colleague conduct some basic tests if that's alright.”

Katsuki Hiroko looked wary, but she gave a curt nod. Yuuri’s father was silent, staring at his hands, as still as a statue.

 

Over the next few days, Yuuri skipped lunch, heading outside into the one of the neighboring fields to take the test to reveal the full extent of his powers. The tests weren't as difficult as Yuuri had thought they would be, though they were quite odd. The examiner was an old man, the wrinkles on his face crinkled in no particular semblance of order.

He talked quietly, giving commands in a low but gentle voice. So far, whatever the man had asked Yuuri to do, he was able to perform.

Banned from skating, a discouraged Yuuri slowly found out what powers he had. He was a strong fire user, he was told. There was one particular feature about Yuuri’s powers that perplexed the examiner the most.

“I don’t understand why only you can put out the fires you cause. No one else, not even the strongest water users, the strongest fire users… Not even _me_.”

(The man was a particularly strong fire user himself, but even he couldn’t force the flames to settle. The first time he had tried, he let out a yelp, the sound tinged with pain but mostly astonishment. “That was the first time I’ve ever been burned. I didn’t know it hurt this much.”)

Yuuri watched him scratch his chin. “I wonder what would happen if we set something on fire and tried to have you put it out _without_ touching it.”

“I will try my best, sir.”

The man tapped his hand on a picnic table. “Light it on fire,” he instructed.

Though he was worried about damaging school property, Yuuri obliged. It took almost no effort on his part, which still scared him. Instantly, the picnic table was in flames, the old wood crackling and popping at the sudden heat.

“Step back,” the old man said.

Yuuri did.

“Now concentrate. Focus your attention to the flames, not the wood. Tell them to stop. Imagine them growing smaller and smaller, until they disappear.”

At first, nothing happened. The poor picnic table continued to disintegrate, slowly becoming more and more blackened.

Then Yuuri’s eyesight started becoming more blurred, darkness seeping into the corners of his vision.

He collapsed. Yuuri processed the old man rushing over to him, his arms surprisingly strong and steady as he lifted Yuuri up in his arms.

“You did it,” he whispered. “You put out the fire.” Yuuri’s eyes closed.

 

He snuck out when he couldn’t take it anymore, taking advantage of the fact that the streets were dark and deserted, families heading to bed after dinner. The Katsuki home was suffocating, the tension apparent whenever Yuuri left his room. He grabbed his skates, careful not to set them on fire, and headed to the ice rink. His instructor had given him a key to the back door a long time ago, when he had managed to complete his first sit spin.

“You deserve it,” he had said, pressing the cool metal into his hand. “Come back whenever you like, even when you’re the most famous ice skater in the world.”

Technically, he was not allowed to skate. Strictly speaking, he was expressly banned from skating by both his parents and the school’s administration. They had told him that it was too unpredictable, and that his powers would only get stronger as he grew, and it would be impossible to reign in his elemental affinity enough to not melt the ice, especially when skating so rigorously.

 

“You’re potentially the strongest fire user of the last century,” the old man had told him a few days after the burning picnic table incident. “No one has ever been able to do what you’re doing now. We just have to train you to control it so you don’t decimate everything around you.”

“And then I can ice skate again?” Yuuri had asked hopefully.

The old man looked somber. “We’ll see,” he had said, but the melancholy and pity in his eyes clearly said “no”.

 

He pressed the key into the lock, hearing the familiar harsh, grating sound as the door unlocked. It had been months since his eleventh birthday, and he had spent none of that precious time skating.

No one was there, as he expected. He slid his skates on carefully, noticing that the familiar tightness of the skate was also intermingled with an new but inherent sense of warmth. He laced them delicately, more careful than ever.

Ever so slowly, he stepped onto the ice. It hissed underneath the blades of his skates, the heat from his feet transferring onto the rink. The ice already started to melt a little– small droplets of water formed from the ground beneath him. Yuuri breathed heavily, trying not to panic as that would only make things worse.

 _Cold, cold, cold,_  he thought. _I am cold_. He thought of Victor’s face, imagining how cool and collected the water user must be on ice. _I am as cold as Victor. I am as cold as Victor._

He dared to glide forward a little bit, eyes shut tight in concentration. He felt his body temperature lower, slowly but surely. He laughed breathily, giddy with relief.

He was still skating when he got a call from his mother. She was going mad with worry.

“Yuuri, it’s six in the morning! Where are you?”

“I…” He considered lying to her, but then thought better of it. “I was skating. Mom, I can control it. I can skate.”

He heard his mother’s breath hitch. “Yuuri, are you on ice right now?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not… melting the rink?”

Yuuri laughed, glad that she was more curious than angry at his blatant disregard of her rules. “It was difficult at first, but I’ve discovered a… method to control it.” A mental picture of Victor landing a quad flashed through his head.

Before she could say anything else, Yuuri spoke again. “Mom, I want to skate again. I can control myself. I can _do_ this.”

She sounded concerned but Yuuri thought he could hear a hint of pride in her voice. “The strongest fire user of the century wants to be an ice skater? Very well.”

“I won’t disappoint you,” Yuuri said, voice coated with emotion. “I will make you proud.”

Yuuri could practically see his mother smile. “I know.”

 

Hiding his powers on ice, Yuuri found, was much easier than hiding his powers from his roommate Phichit. He was quite possibly the most fiery water user on the planet. He would make water dance in his hands, the shapeless blobs moving in random synchronous movements. He, like the rest of the world, assumed that Yuuri was a water user– all figure skaters were.

“How come I’ve never seen you use your water powers?” Phichit asked him one day as they were sitting at the breakfast table in their dorm.

“Oh,” Yuuri flushed pink. “In my family, elemental affinity is… very private.” He decided not to elaborate, because less was more when it came to Phichit.

“Okay,” Phichit’s tone was cavalier. “What’s for dinner?”

Yuuri smiled. “Katsudon.”

Phichit let out a squeak of excitement. He said that there was always something that made Yuuri’s food stand apart from the rest of the students in the dorm. Yuuri was not surprised– the stove in the kitchen was useless, and Yuuri knew how to make the stove fire’s setting _just_ right, much to the amazement of his roommates.

“Delicious!” Phichit exclaimed after his third bowl. “Yuuri, your presence has been bestowed upon humankind so that we may bow down to you while you simply grace us with your beautiful skating and cooking.”

Yuuri blushed. “Thank you, Phichit.”

“What are your plans for Sochi?” he asked Yuuri. “It must be something amazing, something that will blow everyone away!” He leaned closer to Yuuri, eyebrows waggling in a suggestive manner. “Something that will ensnare _Victor Nikiforov!_ ”

Yuuri groaned. “I have both programs basically done, but I would _really_ appreciate if you would stopped talking about Victor.”

“Ooh, I have to see the routines! You only have a few more months until the Grand Prix– I know I didn’t qualify but I could still give you some pointers,” Phichit clapped his hands excitedly. “Yuuri, let’s go to the ice rink now.”

Yuuri was tired to the bone, but he smiled all the same. “Okay, let me get my skates.”

The Grand Prix seemed so far away, but it was coming closer and closer so rapidly that it made Yuuri a little nauseous.

 

Yuuri skated to the center of the rink, the bright lights of the Grand Prix arena focused on his face. Suddenly, he felt heat, more intense than he had ever felt before, consuming him from the inside out. He tried to calm himself down, but then the fire came, first from his sweaty palms, then rapidly from his entire body. His clothes were fireproof, but even they started getting singed. Yuuri looked down, desperate as he saw the ice giving out beneath his feet, water soaking his skates and pants. He turned his head around wildly, calling out for help as he burned through the entire ice skating rink. Yuuri saw Victor, laughing at Yuuri’s misfortune; it was a cruel, taunting thing, and Yuuri felt it slice his heart into pieces.

Victor was laughing louder now, and Yuuri felt himself sink, slowly… slowly… slowly…

“Yuuri! Wake up!”

Yuuri woke with a start. Celestino was staring down at him, looking worried. “Your short program is today.” He left when he made sure that Yuuri was up.

Yuuri fumbled, haphazardly putting his glasses on. He was glad he didn’t set his sheets on fire, but he did notice warily that they were smoking a bit on the ends.

He felt okay for a couple of moments, but then the fact hit him again. Vicchan was dead. His beautiful dog, the poodle he hadn’t seen in five years. Gone. He didn’t even get to say goodbye. He was an absolute mess, damp hair sticking to his skin, eyes stinging and puffy.

He had no idea how he was going to skate without cataclysmically screwing it up.

 

He managed not to mess up his step sequences and not to completely melt the entire rink, but everything else was disastrous. As he stepped off the ice, he made eye contact with Celestino, apologizing with his eyes because no sounds came out of his mouth.

Yuuri was going to stop ice skating professionally, he had decided. He was getting too old to try over and over again, to ultimately fail. He wanted to go home. He wanted the warmth of his mother’s arms, he wanted to see his father’s soft smile. He didn’t want this anymore.

Yuuri knew he was an ugly crier– his face was buried into his hands when the bathroom stall was kicked open.

“What the hell? What kind of water user are you?”

Yuri Plisetsky was standing before him, face contorted in anger. “I’m competing in the senior division next year. We don’t need two Yuris in the same bracket. Incompetents like you should just retire already!” The younger Yuri gave him a look of utter disgust. “Moron!”

 

His misfortune didn’t end there. “Yuri!” he heard a familiar voice. His heart stopped, and he felt his hands heat up, small flames curling in spirals around his fingers.

Victor Nikiforov, the source of the voice, wasn’t looking at him. He had collected water in his hands and lightly splashed it on Yuri Plisetsky, critiquing the step sequences in his free skate.

Plisetsky growled at Victor, sending spurts of water back, soaking Victor’s gray hair. “Ah, Yuri,” –his voice was playful– “you do realize that I can dry myself but you can’t dry yourself?”

“Screw you and your stupid extra powers,” the blond boy muttered before forcing Victor to dry him.

After Victor briefly ran his hands over Yuri’s head, effectively drying the junior gold medalist, he caught sight of the older Yuuri staring at him.

“A commemorative photo? Sure!”

Yuuri felt his heart sink, and he struggled to keep flames from consuming him. _Hot springs_ , he thought. _Hot springs. Water, water, water._ ”

Yuuri managed to get out as quickly as possible, breathing a sigh of relief as the cool air hit his blisteringly hot skin as he left.

 

He said his goodbyes to Phichit, the boy crying when he heard that Yuuri was going back home. “Are you moving your home rink back to Japan?”

Yuuri shrugged, but he knew the answer. “I’m… I’ll think about it.”

Phichit glanced at him knowingly. “Do what’s best for you,” he finally said after a brief pause.

 

It was almost too easy to slip back into his old routine in Hasetsu. He helped out at the hot springs resort when he could, sweeping up the floors (and occasionally warming up the hot springs when it gets a bit _too_ cold for the customers’ tastes).

 

It was a few weeks before he decided to take a trip to the ice rink. Yuuko worked there now, he had heard, and she would definitely let him in. He still had the key to the back door, but he opted to go in through the front.

“Our regular hours are over!” Yuuko called.

“It’s been a while, Yuuko-san.”

“Yuuri-kun?” She got excited, eyes widening as she realized that he was back after five years. “You came to skate, right?” She assured him that he could, and for that, he was grateful.

He walked with her to the rink. As he slipped onto the ice, he handed her his blue-rimmed glasses. “Um, I wanted you to see this, so I’ve been practicing it since the competitions ended.”

He looked at her but was concentrating on letting coolness overtake his body. “Please watch.”

He let the movements flow gently, imagining hot water flowing in the hot springs of his family’s resort. He had discovered the idea of picturing steaming hot water a few months after his debut in professional figure skating. He liked the idea of fire and water working together in harmony– it was fitting for all the routines he skated. There was no one in the world that could put out his fires, but he liked to think that this particular pool of water could stop his fires. He could be as outwardly passionate as he wanted without bursting into never-ending flames.

When he finished, Yuuko gave him a round of applause. When she called him a perfect copy of Victor, he was shocked to hear it.

Axel, Loop, and Lutz were as enthusiastic as ever, peppering him with questions that made him quite uncomfortable. He was quick to get off the ice when he felt himself start to get overwhelmed by their comments– he didn’t want to ruin the rink. Yuuri was invited to come back whenever he wished, and he thanked them kindly.

 

He was lying down on his bed when he decided to try Phichit’s little trick, but instead of water, he would use fire. He sat up, creating a small fire that danced on the open palm of his right hand. He squinted his eyes, trying to force the fire into shapes. After a few minutes, it finally seemed to work. Yuuri was surprised at the shape that formed, gliding down and up his arm. If he looked at it really closely, he felt like he could see the distinctive blue eyes and gray hair.

“Yuuri! What’s with that video? It’s being retweeted everywhere!” Mari seemed just as surprised as him.

The Nishigōri family was extremely apologetic, but the damage had already been done. Yuuri examined the video closely and he was horrified to see that there was the slightest amount of smoke coming off of his body. He was just glad that it could be passed off as his breath from the cold environment.

The shock died down after a while, and that made Yuuri insurmountably happy. He wanted to go back to being no one, to finally live down the horrible failure that was his performance in the Grand Prix.

After shoveling snow for his father (secretly torching it into oblivion when the neighbors weren’t looking), he was assaulted by a gargantuan ball of fur, falling onto the carpet in the lobby of the resort.

 _This can’t be…_ Yuuri thought.

“Yuuri, isn’t he just like Vicchan? He came with a really good-looking foreign guest.”

The dog in question jumped off Yuuri immediately because Yuuri’s body temperature skyrocketed in a matter of seconds.

“Don’t torch the lobby!” –he was chastised– “we just redecorated!”

Yuuri ran like he had never run before, headed to the hot spring pools.

Victor Nikiforov was there, a peculiar expression on his face.

“Why are you here?” Yuuri asked quietly, pink patches on his cheeks.

Victor stood up, and Yuuri nearly exploded into a fireball. He hid his hands behind his back, letting his hands’ flames rise steadily, but not high enough as to where Victor could see them.

“Yuuri, starting today, I’m your coach. I’ll make you win the Grand Prix Final." A smirk played on Victor’s lips. “As a fellow water user, I will help you with the best of my abilities– help you find powers you never knew you had!”

Yuuri felt the earth start spinning in the wrong direction. How was Yuuri supposed to hide the fact he was an ice skater that just happened to be the most powerful fire user of the century from _Victor freaking Nikiforov?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This au is really complex and that makes me pretty happy but it’s also kind of hard to explain. Elemental affinity is when someone has powers associated with one of the four elements. I focus on fire and water in this one because Yuuri is the only figure skater on the planet that isn’t a water user. He doesn’t want anyone to know, and this makes it very difficult for him to skate without inhibition (because he might decimate the entire ice rink if he gets carried away).  
> Yuuri’s powers as a fire user are quite unique. Usually fire users are able to put out their own fires but also fires from other fire users. No one can put out Yuuri’s fires, and this makes him very powerful.  
> Water users’ powers work generally the same as fire users’. Victor is kind of like Yuuri in that no other water user can dry themselves when Victor gets water on them (like when Yurio gets wet) but in general cases, water users are able to make things wet but also dry them off.  
> Fire users’ powers include being able to procure fire in the hands, but also being fireproof. Yuuri has the ability to set himself on fire completely, and he can put out his fires without touching them, which no one else can do.  
> There’s probably more that I’m forgetting to tell y’all, but I’ll add things if I forgot them. Thanks for reading m8.
> 
> again, hmu I'm lonely: [this is my tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)


	2. episode 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter revolves around ep 2!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to leave a comment/drop a kudos/draw fanart/sacrifice your soul for this fic I'm down with that
> 
> If you have questions about how elemental affinity works, leave a comment or [message me on tumblr!](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)

Luckily, Yuuri didn't have to worry about the issue at hand for a while. He was forbidden from stepping on the ice until he got his weight back down to what it was before the Grand Prix in Sochi. Yuuri could burn off fat very easily, but not nearly as easily as he could gain it. After being away from professional skating for so long, the chubbiness was visible. Victor had offhandedly mentioned to him that he didn’t mind the “soft curves” of Yuuri’s body (Yuuri’s face had turned as red as a cherry), but Victor knew that the extra weight would hinder Yuuri as a skater.

“You need to get back to your weight at last year’s Grand Prix Final at the least,” he had grandiosely announced when he had arrived. “Or I can never coach you.”

Yuuri gulped when he remembered the look on Victor’s face as he said that– his lips parted and blue eyes widening in amusement as he watched Yuuri squirm.

He was saved by the arrival of Victor’s almost innumerable amount of boxes. Yuuri was surprised (yet secretly pleased) that Victor had decided to stay in their resort. It cemented the fact this was all real.

They finally managed to lug all of Victor’s belongings into a spare banquet room. When they were done, Victor knelt down near Yuuri, who was already on the floor, exhausted from the manual labor.

“Yuuri, tell me everything about you.” Victor’s right hand held Yuuri’s chin gently as his left hand trailed up Yuuri’s arm, cool to the touch. Yuuri felt his temperature spike as Victor asked him deeply personal questions.

Victor interrupted himself, eyes narrowing to focus on Yuuri’s trembling hands. “Why are you so warm?” he asked.

Yuuri snapped out of his daze and suddenly processed that Victor was starting to get vaguely suspicious. He did what he had to do: Yuuri backed out of the room as quickly as possible, back slamming hard against the wall in the hallway.

 _I’m still scared to be close to him,_ Yuuri thought.

He decided to take a walk. Victor had brought the snow with him, but Yuuri rarely felt cold, for obvious reasons. But even so, as the sounds of the small town faded away and the gentle lull of waves reached Yuuri’s ears, he thought of Victor and shivered.

Yuuri kept walking, headed for the shore, watching his breath take the shape of soft white puffs. He was at the shore before he knew it. This was his secret place– where he went to lose control and stop hiding his powers. He stepped into the water, letting it lap at his feet and walking in deep enough that his lower half was submerged. Breathing deeply, he relaxed.

The flames erupted from his hands first, slowly spreading, reacting wildly with the water. The fire did not die down; rather, it spread further as water hissed and sputtered, unable to quench the flames. Yuuri took another breath, and then he fully let go.

His body was on fire, but instead of heat, all he felt was relief. He was not being forced to contain his affinity. He didn’t have to bottle it up– a feeling so suffocating that during some competitions that ran too long, he could scarcely eat or drink or sleep.

After the Grand Prix disaster where he placed sixth, he drove far away from Detroit, past its outskirts, heading to any open field where he could let go. He found one eventually, and stood on dry, cracked ground, burning as bright as a star for five straight hours.

Today was similar yet less extreme. Yuuri burned for ten minutes, letting his flames travel until they grew dangerously close to the rickety wooden dock that was a few meters to his left.

He sighed as he retracted the fire, but not before drying himself off.

 

“Yuuri, let’s sleep together!” Victor’s voice floated through the wooden door of Yuuri’s bedroom. Yuuri panicked, practically ripping all of his posters of Victor from the walls of his room.

Chest heaving from the effort, Yuuri stared at the topmost photo of Victor. He looked like a deity, his face expressing longing that could never be seen off ice. _We’ve barely ever spoken,_ Yuuri realized, _because I always put him on such a high pedestal_.

Victor finally stopped knocking, resigning himself to sleep in his own bed. Yuuri took off his glasses and slipped under his the covers of his bed, letting the cool sheets enshroud him. He stared at nothing for a while, listening to his heart pound in his chest.

It was happiness, Yuuri concluded. He was happy that Victor was here, despite how much effort it was going to take to hide his fire affinity from him.

Slowly, he extended his palm out from under the sheets, watching in fascination as fire started curling out from the center of his palm. Yuuri concentrated. The ice skater’s shape started to form more quickly than it had last time. Somehow –though later a less sleep-deprived Yuuri would chalk it up to the fact that _he_ created it– the figure knew to stay away from Yuuri’s sheet. It spun around in circles on Yuuri’s open palm, occasionally attempting some jumps and spins that made the skin under the “fake” blades tingle.

He was happy.

 

Running again made him ache in places he forgot could ache. He was overheating– that much was clear. Small ribbons of smoke floated out from the insides of his jacket, but Victor, who was riding a bicycle ahead of him, didn’t seem to notice, nonchalantly greeting people as they moved through the town. Victor slowly accelerated, prompting Yuuri to move even faster.

When they arrived at Ice Castle, Victor was quick to introduce himself to the Nishigōri family, the five of them stunned at his unexpected arrival.

As soon as Victor slid onto the ice, the entire rink seemed to come alive. Yuuri could almost hear the ice hum with approval, and a pang of jealousy hit him.

“Seriously?” he heard Takeshi ask in disbelief.

“Yeah,” he smiled proudly, not taking his eyes off Victor. “He says he’d like to use this as our home base for now.” He turned to Takeshi. “Is that okay?”

Takeshi was extremely pleased, assuring Yuuri that it was fine and that he’d talk to the higher-ups.

“Victor teaching you himself… It’s like a dream come true!”

Yuuri looked down, smiling shyly. He felt warm spread from his center, pooling somewhere in his chest as he thought about how surreal it felt that Victor was here.

He had been twelve when Victor had reached the top of the skating world. All his life, all Yuuri wanted was to be like Victor, to imitate him. Never in his entire life did he ever expect Victor to find something inspiring in _him_.

Yuuri touched his face as he watched Victor, noting the warmth of the chubby skin under his calloused fingertips.

_What did Victor see in him?_

“The little piggy can’t enter the rink until he drops some body fat.”

Yuuri slumped over, Takeshi’s hand still draped across his shoulders.

 

“Maybe he just wanted an excuse to take a break,” Minako told him. Yuuri gripped the bar, sweating heavily and breathing hard.

“Don’t say that,” he almost pleaded. “That’s what I suspect too, but…” Yuuri’s voice trailed off.

“You need to take advantage of him!” Minako bellowed, a spark of inspiration brimming in her irises. “Let’s get you slimmed up!”

“Okay,” Yuuri managed to say, purely because he was afraid of what Minako might do if he called it a night and went home.

They started light, but as the exercises got rigorous, Yuuri found himself losing control. It was silly and frustrating, how he felt like he was on the verge of slipping up. For _years_ , he had stopped himself– forcing a diminution of his powers. People assumed he was shy with his “water” powers, but in reality he was trying not to hurt them. That was his paramount endeavor.

But with Victor’s arrival, his entire world had been flipped on its head. He was losing control– becoming too reckless with the fire he controlled.

He hurriedly looked at Minako. He had never revealed his elemental affinity to anyone outside of his family. But if he was going to tell anyone…

“Yuuri, you seem distracted.” Minako looked at him disapprovingly as he trained. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I…” Yuuri told himself he would tell her on the count of five. He sat down on the cool wooden floor, letting it soothe his warm legs. His count reached four, but he couldn’t seem to reach five.

“Yuuri,” Minako took a seat across from him, legs folded neatly. “You can trust me.”

“I’m…” He couldn’t manage to say it, so instead he decided to _show_ her.

He opened his hand and relinquished the most miniscule bit of control. A small light bloomed from the soft skin of his palm, flickering into life like one of Mari’s cheap corner store lighters.

“Since I turned eleven,” Yuuri explained as Minako’s eyes widened, her mouth falling open into an ‘o’.

“You’re not… water?” Her question came out in fragments, and Yuuri noticed that he had never seen Minako this flustered before.

“No,” Yuuri said. After a pause he spoke again. “I’m more… powerful… than they thought.”

He ended up telling Minako the story of his fire training, being unable to stop after hitting his stride. He chuckled breathily between relaying his past experiences, unable to contain the euphoria of finally telling someone about his secret.

Minako was quiet for a while after he finished. “How do you… how do you perform? It’s extremely rigorous to be on ice even when you _are_ a water user.”

Yuuri smiled. “Practice. So much practice.”

Minako’s lips curled into a grin, reciprocating him. “To be honest, I’m not as surprised as you’d expect. Now…” She stood up, wiping her hands on her yoga pants. “Let’s get to work.”

 

He was balancing himself on a wooden beam when Victor asked.

“Do you have feelings for Minako?”

Yuuri turned around so quickly that he thought he might have whiplash. “What? No!”

After a series of odd questions, Victor sprung on the opportunity to talk about himself. “My first girlfriend was–”

“Stop!” Yuuri pleaded.

“What’s that castle over there?” Victor asked suddenly, already distracted.

Yuuri told him, and he watched as Victor’s face lit up. Victor insisted that Yuuri take a photo of him for Instagram.

Victor geo-tagged his location, which proved to be a major mistake. News outlets all over the world frenzied like piranhas, rushing towards the resort in hordes.

Yuuri didn’t notice them that much. Instead, he concentrated on his training. After the long weeks that he’d been exercising, practicing ballet, and eating a controlled diet, he was so close to having his weight down.

 

One more week passed, and he had finally done it. In preparation for this day, he had burned in his secret place near the waterfront for a full hour. Nothing could truly make his powers die down, but it felt nice to stand there and let go, at least psychologically.

He ran to Ice Castle in the morning, the run already exhausting him. But nothing could dampen his spirits today– he would finally be able to skate again.

Bursting through the flash mob of reporters, he forcefully hit the glass door of the entrance.

“My weight’s back to what it was before the Grand Prix Final!” Yuuri announced proudly, ignoring the odd tone of the triplets’ voices. “Now I’ll finally get Victor’s permission to skate!”

He opened the doors happily, but immediately stumbled as he felt a boot kick him in the back.

“It’s all _your_ fault!” Yuri Plisetsky’s voice was grating, brimming with anger. “Apologize,” he barked.

“Sorry, sorry…” Yuuri found himself saying.

Plisetsky was a ball of rage. “As if a guy who’d sob in a toilet at the Grand Prix Final can change at all just by getting Victor as a coach.”

Yuuri was startled for a second. _He’s… underestimating me_. A flashback of Yuri saying “What kind of water user are you?” flashed through his head. Yuuri smirked, which seemed to infuriate the short boy further.

“Ask him yourself,” he urged the younger boy.

As he walked away from the seething boy, he got lost in his thoughts.

 _Victor came all the way to Hasetsu because he wanted to._ A faint bubble of pride swelled in Yuuri’s chest. _Just to become my coach._

They walked into the rink together, Yuri's eyes widening as he watched Victor move on ice.

“Those moves… They’re for the short program that Victor was practicing for next season.”

“What?” Yuuri asked. It hit him that Victor was truly dropping everything to coach him. His training, his routines, his country, his life… Yuuri felt a faint blush creep into his cheeks.

“Surprising the whole world has always been his top priority,” Yuri explained. “He had the whole world in his hands."

“If you don’t have any inspiration left, you’re as good as dead.” Yuri kept talking, more to himself than to Yuuri. “I need Victor’s help if I’m going to make my senior debut and win the Grand Prix Final.”

He called out to Victor, throwing the tiniest but of water in the older man’s direction.

“What do you want?” Victor asked after initial pleasantries.

Seeing the pissed expression on Yuri's face, he spoke again. “Judging from that look, I’m guessing I forgot some promise I made.”

Yuri was still seething when night fell.

“You knew I was the forgetful type,” Victor said sheepishly.

“Yes, I’m painfully aware of that…” Yuri stopped slumping. “But a promise is still a promise! You’ll choreograph my new program, Victor! Let’s go back to Russia!”

It felt like a shard of glass had hit Yuuri’s heart. His eyes widened, looking to Victor for a reaction.

“I’ve decided!” Victor said after a moment. “Tomorrow, I’ll choreograph a program for both of you to the same music I’m using in my short program.”

Victor explained, after the initial shock settled, that the piece had several arrangements.  
“You’ll compete to see who can surprise the audience more!”

“Victor will do whatever the winner will say!” Yuri had a slightly disconcerting grin on his face. And so it was decided.

 

Yuri had also decided that he was going to stay with them at the resort, claiming that it would be unfair if Yuuri had Victor all to himself.

The teenager was a demanding creature, but even he seemed satisfied with the hot springs and, more importantly, the katsudon.

They were having dinner when Mari walked in. She was ecstatic when she saw him, claiming that he looked exactly like a singer in her favorite boy band.

“His name is also Yuuri,” she was told.

“What? That’s confusing.” She inspected Yuri for a second before pointing at him. “Okay, you’re Yurio.”

“What?” Yurio accidentally soaked the legs of his pants, water spurting from his hands, a reaction from his sheer incredulousness. He dried himself off, briefly muttering an apology to Yuuri’s mother.

After deciding that Yurio would be staying in the storage room, Mari instructed Yuuri to come help clean the room. Yuuri caught a few snippets of conversation as he walked out. For some reason, this seemed to affect him more than Yurio’s dramatics at the ice rink.

 _I see… Of course._ He grabbed his skates and headed out. _Yuri has more potential than I do_.

These thoughts followed him through the town, no matter how fast he was running. _Above all, he’s comfortable in front of Victor. Compared to me, he’s much more._

He was alone on the rink, much like the first night he started skating, though he knew that the Nishigōris were somewhere in the back rooms, working.

He skated irregular laps around the rink, letting the ice keep him calm and cool. For some reason, he felt like he was being watched. It was a faint tingle, hardly noticeable, so he brushed it aside and continued skating.

 

Yurio ran with him to the ice rink in the morning, tailing behind Victor’s bike. Yuuri preferred to keep his distance, running with Makkachin so Victor couldn’t see the faintest bit smoke unfurling from the nape of his neck. After all, it was their first proper day– the unveiling of Victor’s programs for them; Yuuri was bound to be nervous.

Imagining his family’s hot springs in order to stay on ice started becoming more futile day after day. Usually, there was no one there but him, but thoughts of Victor started to seep into his mind– after all, Victor had made his first appearance in one of the pools.

Yuuri started picturing something new to help him– envisioning the uppermost peaks of snowy mountains, untouched snow freezing to the touch, yet still ethereal.

Victor stood in front of them, eager to play the new music.

“On Love: Agape” wafted through the ice rink speakers.

“Have you ever thought about love?” Victor asked.

Yuuri shook his head while Yurio didn’t say anything at all.

“All right,” Victor’s eyes seemed to bore holes through Yuuri, and he shifted uneasily, feeling the familiar sensation that indicated to him that he was getting much too warm to be on ice. He thought of the unnamed peaks again, closing his eyes for just a moment.

Victor interpreted this as vivid concentration. “What do you feel when you listen to this music?” Victor questioned them, his tone light.

Yuuri closed his eyes again. “It’s very clear and innocent, like someone who doesn’t know what love is yet.”

Yurio was not amused. “I don’t like this piece,” he said sullenly. “This innocence crap makes me want to barf.”

“Okay.” Victor was smiling in such a way that made Yuuri uneasy. He fiddled with the buttons of the remote, switching the song from “Agape” to “Eros.”

“It’s like a completely different song,” Yuuri said in wonder.

“Victor! I want to skate this one!” Yurio was quick to decide, an energetic fervor in his eyes.

“The first piece is “On Love: Agape”, and its theme is unconditional love. And this piece is “On Love: Eros.” The theme is sexual love.”

Victor had a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I’ll have you two skate to these opposing themes.”

Victor was in front of Yuuri before he could even process what was happening. “Yuuri, you’ll skate to Eros!”

“Yurio,” he moved on to the teenager, “you’ll skate to Agape!”

Yuuri’s initial reaction was to hold on to his head, already feeling dizzy. Yurio was  _angry_ , like Yuuri had never seen before. “Switch them! That piece isn’t me at all!”

“You’ll have to do the opposite of what people expect! How else will you surprise them?” Victor had a smirk plastered on his face and Yuuri thought he might pass out from the sheer overwhelmingness of the situation.

Victor went on a little spiel, but Yuuri understood the resounding theme of Victor’s words. _If I’m not up to Victor’s standards by next week, then I’ve lost him forever._

“Fine! I’ll skate to Agape.” Yurio insisted that his senior debut depends on it. “You’d better give me a program that’ll let me win!”

Victor was unfazed by the outburst. “It’s up to you whether you win or not. If _I_ skated the program, I’d win for sure.”

He looked down onto the ice. “Yurio, you’re getting the ice wet.”

It was true– Yurio had gotten so emotional that his palms were dripping water onto the rink.

“Ice is _already_ wet anyway, you asshole!” Yuri dug one of his skates into the ice. “If I win, Victor, you’re coming back to Russia! And you’ll be my coach. That’s what I want!”

“Sure.” With Victor’s response, Yuuri felt something bitter and melancholy rise up within him.

“Yuuri.” His name was tender on Victor’s lips. “What about you? What would you like to do if you win?”

Yuuri spoke before he could stop himself from saying the words, all the while imagining undisturbed snow. “I want to eat katsudon with you, Victor.” Yuuri raised his head higher. “I want to keep on winning, and keep on eating katsudon!”

Yuuri shifted his weight on the ice, not wanting it to melt. “So I’ll skate to Eros!” He was pleased when he saw the bewildered look on Victor’s face. “I’ll give it all the eros I’ve got!”

“Great! That’s exactly what I like!”

 

Victor came to him later that night, finding his way onto the top of the resort. He had accidentally found this particular hiding spot of Yuuri’s when looking for an upstairs bathroom and instead finding a set of stairs leading to the roof.

Silently, Victor sat down next to Yuuri on the precariously fragile-looking ledge.

“I’m surprised that Yurio didn’t come after you,” Yuuri teased softly. “We can’t have a situation where you spend more time with me than him, can we?”

Victor laughed gently. “He’s in bed. Even a tiger needs his beauty sleep, yes?”

“I guess so.”

There was a pregnant pause, Yuuri watching the stars and Victor watching Yuuri.

“Eros, hm?” Victor asked, an amused lilt in his voice.

“I don’t know why you’d choose that for me,” Yuuri confessed, gazing up at the stars. “It’s the opposite of who I am.”

“Yuuri, do you know why I came to coach you?”

Yuuri flushed a lovely shade of pink. “You saw the video of me skating, right?”

“Yes, but there was _something_ about that performance.” Victor’s cool fingers clasped Yuuri’s warm ones. “You looked so… restrained. Like something was caging you.”

The younger skater was sure that Victor could feel his touch stiffen at that statement, but Victor continued to speak.

“I want to know what that is, Yuuri. Usually water users put their all into their performance, but you seem to want to restrain your powers. I find that…” Victor looked for the right word. “…perplexing.”

“I don’t… I…” Yuuri was trying to say something, but the words caught in his throat.

“So I gave you Eros.” Victor interrupted. “I gave you Eros because that fiery passion is the hardest for a water user to pull off. Even with all his emotion, I doubt Yurio could do it.” Victor looked at Yuuri with an indescribable emotion. “ But I think _you_ can.”

“I… I will try my best. For you, Victor.”

 

And so it was fully set. Yuuri would be skating to Eros, channeling the persona of a seductive, fiery charmer. How exactly he was going to do that without burning Ice Castle to the ground, he didn’t know, but Yuuri knew he had to find some way to handle it. Otherwise, Victor would be on the other side of the world before Yuuri could blink.

Yuuri was suddenly hyperaware of Victor’s skin pressed against his, their palms connected, and he could’ve sworn that he almost felt a spark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [this is my tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/) come hmu I need friends lmao
> 
> So it's looking like this is gonna be an episode–by–episode fic, which means that it's gonna take a while so please bear with me as I write this out over the next several weeks. I swear I will finish it– the love and support I have gotten is overwhelmingly awesome!
> 
> I don't have a usual posting schedule as I am usually way too disorganized for that, but I tend to post on Sunday nights, so that might start becoming a thing.  
> So yeah, thanks for sticking around m8


	3. episode 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> follows ep 3!
> 
> *If some of you guys are confused as to why this is the second time I've uploaded a chapter three, this is a revised edition of the one that came out late Sunday night. I didn't like that one as much, so I decided to rewrite it. I'm sorry to all the people that left amazing comments/constructive criticism that got deleted– I just wanted to post this chapter fresh!*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to leave a comment/drop a kudos/draw fanart/sacrifice your soul for this fic I'm down with that
> 
> If you have questions about how elemental affinity works, leave a comment or [message me on tumblr!](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I really appreciate the support y'all have given me! :)

Victor was visibly excited to show them the choreography– Yuuri could tell by the way body shook with excitement, his right foot tapping the ice repeatedly in a steady rhythm. Yuuri noticed a small stream of water wrapping around the nooks of his fingers delicately, making small curly ribbons that extended out but never touched the ground.

“First, Yurio’s ‘On Love: Agape’,” Victor positioned himself on the center of the ice, and immediately took off as the music started. He was a lithe creature, the sound of his skates reverberating of the sides of the rink, coming out as a deep hum.

 _Crap,_ Yuuri thought, unable to contain his wonder. _This is hard._ He glanced over at Yurio, who looked slightly less impressed, but he was still watching in rapt attention, his eyes glazed over and his hands subconsciously exuding and retracting water over and over again.

Victor finished the routine, turning to face them, but Yuuri thought that it was over much too soon.

“Kind of like that. What do you think?” Victor smiled sappily.

“Yeah, I pretty much got it,” Yurio said to him, unfazed as Yuuri was having an internal meltdown.

“Okay, Yuuri. You’re next.” Victor called. He grabbed the remote and fiddled with it for a moment, before the sultry tones came to life.

 _Choreography that Victor did for me alone…_ The thought made Yuuri shiver.

And then Victor truly _began_ and Yuuri had never felt more _and_ less fiery in his entire life.

He moved like a god, every move confident but more smooth than calculating. It was the most scandalous scene that Yuuri had ever laid his eyes upon, and his face heated further knowing that it was made for him. _Such Eros,_ Yuuri gulped. _How am I supposed to pull this off?_

“Yuuri! How was that?” Victor looked at him with an underlying tinge of familiarity, memories of their last night on the roof resurfacing in Yuuri’s mind.

“It was…” – _spectacular, amazing, phenomenal–_ “very eros!”

After shyly telling Victor what quads he could land, Yuuri was told to do the basics first. It made complete sense, but Yuuri still felt a hint of inadequacy breach his thoughts. Victor had never been closer to him in his entire life –if he thought about it hard enough, he could still feel Victor’s icy hand pressed firmly against his– but at the same time, he still felt oceans away from him.

“You have the skill to win. Why can’t you make it happen?”

“Well, that’s probably because,” Yuuri lowered his head in shame. “I lack confidence.” His anxiety flared up and he thought of the mountain peaks again, cooling himself down.

“Right. My job is to make you feel confident in yourself.”

Yuuri was glad he had controlled himself mere seconds before because he _almost_ lost it when Victor reached closer and ran his thumb delicately over Yuuri’s chapped bottom lip. He was barely an inch away when he whispered, “No one in the whole wide world knows your true Eros, Yuuri.”

Yuuri’s heart rate increased. He had never considered the possibility that Victor somehow knew about his fire powers.

“It may be an alluring side of you that you yourself are unaware of.” That sounded less suspicious, Yuuri noted. It was quite possible that Victor was simply making a point instead of an indirect reference to Yuuri’s secret.

“Can you show me what it is soon?” Yuuri trembled. He could feel the coolness emanating from Victor’s body and somehow it flared up his own body more rather than cooling it down.

“Hey, Victor! Aren’t you teaching me first!” Yurio called out, letting out water that rained down on both of them.

Victor was visibly startled, Yuuri was surprised to find. He stumbled on the ice when the water hit him, backing away from Yuuri, who had completely fallen in shock.

The older man regained composure in a few seconds, rubbing his hands over the affected parts of his body to dry them off. Yuuri was still on the floor, the heat of his skin making Yurio’s water evaporate. As Victor reached over to help him up, Yuuri truly noticed how overheated he had gotten, the stark contrast of their temperatures evident.

Victor inspected him, letting his eyes drag over Yuuri’s body. “You’re already dry– good. Think long and hard about what eros is to you.”

Yuuri didn’t know how to begin. _What is eros to me? What would that be?_

He decided to take a walk in the middle of practice, to clear his thoughts. Victor eyed Yuuri as he stepped off the ice but thankfully, he made no comment.

“Victor, you’re just going to let him go?!” Yurio barked angrily.

“Focus on your agape, Yurio.”

 

The town was beautiful, in its own way. Street vendors greeted him and offered free food– it was a small town, after all, and they knew who he was. He politely declined, knowing that Victor would kill him if he ruined his diet now. It was the middle of the day, and the streets were bustling with a renewed amount of people, drawn into the tourist destination because of a certain Nikiforov. Yuuri raised the hood of his jacket, determined not to attract any attention from reporters and journalists.

He only had a few minutes to spare and the waterfront was much too far away. He decided to go the only place where he was truly comfortable– home.

His family had erected a small shrine for Vicchan while Yuuri was away. Yuuri lit the candles around the photo frame with his pointer finger.

“Hey, Vicchan. I can only be here for a couple of minutes.” His chest heaved. “I… A lot of things have been happening recently. I don’t… I don’t know what to do, Vicchan. How could anyone like me win anything?”

Tears slipping from his eyes, Yuuri reached out– a mistake.

The flame incinerated the photo of Vicchan in less than a second.

 _Shit, shit shit,_ Yuuri thought, immediately putting out the flame telekinetically, along with the candle flames.

It wasn’t the only photo of Vicchan that they had, but the loss of an irreplaceable memory still pierced Yuuri all the same.

 _I burn everything I touch_.

He didn’t have time to mourn, because his phone buzzed with a text from Yurio.

“Victor says to come back to the rink, katsudon. How can you even think of competing against me without any practice?”

Hiccuping slightly, he stood up. He let his hands burn white-hot flames for a split second, before quenching them. It was time to pretend again.

 

“You had to do basic training for half a day because you didn’t get eros?” Takeshi’s hands are firm on Yuuri’s shoulders, helping him stretch effectively.

After hearing Yuuri confirm this information, Takeshi pursed his lips. “What’s stopping you, Yuuri? What’s holding you back?”

Yuuri stood up on a locker room bench, ignoring the question entirely. “I just don’t see how I can tell this story like Victor does?”

“Story? What story?”

“A playboy comes to a certain town and bewitches the women left and right. He decided to pursue the most beautiful woman in town, but she isn’t swayed. Then, as they play the game of love, she finds it difficult to make the right choices and ends up falling for him. Then he casts her aside, as though he’s tired of her, and goes off to the next town.”

“Wow, hot!” Takeshi whistled. “That playboy must be a fire user.”

Yuuri chuckled. “I don’t know… The woman feels more _warm_ to me.”

“Maybe they’re both fire users?” Takeshi supplied. “But actually… I think this playboy might be a water user. Very cold. Do you think that would help you find your eros? Knowing that he’s a water user too?”

Yuuri breathed deeply. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so. Dammit. I’ll never surpass Victor.”

Yuuri tugged at his hair, feeling the searing heat of his scalp warm his fingers.

“I’m sorry, Yuuri, but how can someone as inexperienced in dating as you beat the hottest bachelor in the world?”

Yuuri knew that Takeshi didn’t mean to be rude when he laughed, but it stung all the same. Yuuri found himself thinking the same thing.

_How can I ever be as good as Victor Nikiforov?_

 

Even though Yurio liked to pretend that his stamina on ice matched his tough exterior, he too was visibly exhausted by the time that practice was over. It was a cold night, and Yuuri hissed with pleasure when he entered the warm water of the hot springs. Yurio was next to him complaining about his trouble with grasping agape– apparently Victor had been grilling him all day about his ‘greed’.

Yuuri was faring no better. _Damn it. I’m an adult male of twenty-three. I could totally show mature sexiness if I wanted to._ Yuuri felt the water ease the muscles in his back, but he was still tense, so angry at himself that the steam in the hot springs seemed to be especially concentrated around his body.

Yurio looked at him later on– a haze of fatigue evident in his eyes– before leaning closer. “Why are you so warm?”

“Y-Yurio, we’re in a hot spring.” Yuuri got up, slipping into a robe before Yurio could ask any other questions. “Come, it’s time for food.”

 

Victor was the only one who managed to eat avidly, practically inhaling his meal before finally stopping and taking some time to breathe.

Yuuri’s attention was more focused on the cool touch of the wooden table against his hot cheek. _It’s no good,_ he thought miserably. _From a physical standpoint I’m not even close to eros. Eros… It’s what causes you to lose the ability to make normal decisions. What causes me to lose that ability is..._

“I get it now!” Yuuri raised his head up from the table with renewed enthusiasm. “Pork cutlet bowls! That’s what eros is to me!”

What greeted him was utter silence, Yurio eyeing him judgmentally from his fatigued position on the table.

“Oh sorry... “ Yuuri put his hands on head, trying to rub away the madness that had overcome him. “It’s not...”

Victor had an answer that Yuuri had not anticipated. “Let’s go with that. It’s nice and unique.”

Yuuri was speechless, but Yurio was not. “Seriously?” he asked with a sly smile on his face, head still resting on the table.

 

The moon was out, the bright crescent lighting the path that Yuuri was taking to run to Ice Castle. Makkachin had insisted on coming with him; the fluffy poodle was happily trailing Yuuri’s heels. He kept getting distracted, though, running off to inspect other things, so Yuuri lit a small flame perched in between his fingers to keep Makkachin’s attention on him.

 

He had done better in practice than before his ridiculous katsudon idea, which felt nice. He felt like he was _almost_ there, and yet the gap between him and his goals felt further than he could jump. It was a strangely unsettling feeling, and Yuuri tried to shake it off as he stepped off the ice, ready to watch Yurio attempt his routine.

Yuuri noticed swiftly why Yurio was a water user. It wasn’t apparent at first. If anything, Yuuri thought, Yurio was a powerhouse– a fire user through and through. But Yuuri could see clearly now; that wasn’t the case. Yurio’s movements exuded the same sense of passion as flames, but upon further inspection, the coldness –the calculated air of his moves screamed water. Watching him, Yuuri felt like he surrounded by cold, unyielding water– the tsunamis and floods of the world fitted into a fifteen year old boy.

The fire user could see what Victor meant– this was not agape.

 

And so practice continued. The two Yuris practiced diligently and rigorously. The Nishigōris were unendingly supportive of both of them, encouraging them to work harder.

And Victor. Victor perplexed Yuuri. They had a nightly tradition of sitting on the rooftop together– Victor giving him ice skating pointers on occasion, but usually they just sat in silence, letting the moonlight wash over them. Victor would always reach for his hand at some point in the night, and Yuuri found it to be sweet. More often than not, he’d fall asleep like that– head slumping over onto Victor’s shoulder. He’d wake up in the morning tucked under his own bed’s sheets, glasses placed neatly on his nightstand, although he could never quite recall how he got there.

 

Despite all of his students’ attempts, Victor still deemed their routines to be missing something essential.

“Maybe a waterfall would help!” Victor said brightly one day. “It makes sense– to feel your element rushing over you with strength, grace, and beauty. It will definitely help!”

Yuuri slumped his shoulders in defeat, but Yurio was livid.

 

“I’m going to kill him.” Yurio scowled as the water rushed over him (though he refused to allow it to get him wet).

“Why me, too?” Yuuri asked. He could do nothing about the water without revealing his fire powers, so he resigned himself to pensive meditation.

“Who cares?” Yurio furrowed his brows. “Damn it. Who cares about agape? Forget all of them.”

Yurio was quiet for a long time afterwards, and despite himself, Yuuri felt a spike of concern for the younger boy.

“Yurio?” he asked tentatively. “Hey, Yurio!” He noticed that Yurio had started to relax, and was letting the waterfall get him wet, his robe soaked through.

The blond seemed to snap out of a heavy daze when Yuuri gripped his arm.

“Are you okay? Let’s call it a day.”

Yurio was unusually subdued. “Okay,” he said without complaint. He looked almost… vulnerable.

 

Victor wasn’t at practice on time the next day, and Yurio knew why.

“They said he was drinking until dawn. Dumbass.”

Yuuri understood now, why Victor hadn’t come up to the roof the night before. It had somehow felt a little colder without him (which logically didn’t make any sense, but nothing did at this point).

“Yurio?” Yuuri willed himself to ask before he lost his nerve. “Please teach me how to land a quad Salchow.”

 

Yuuri fell again. Hard. The ice was unforgiving, almost taunting him for attempting to decently skate. _If I were a water user, this wouldn’t be so difficult,_ Yuuri found himself thinking, a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

“Hey, katsudon, watch me do it one more time.” Yurio said, almost as harsh as the ice itself, but he was interrupted by the loud squeaking of the rink doors.

“Sorry I’m late!” Victor’s silver hair was sloppy, the strands sticking out in random places. “What were you practicing just now?”

Both Yuris felt like they were caught doing something illegal. Immediately, they split, each spitting out a weak excuse.

Yurio had found his agape, and Yuuri felt like he was drowning.

Yuuri heard Victor talking to himself, about Yurio being ready for the next stage.

 _Next stage?_ Yuuri asked himself. _Does that mean I have a next stage?_

He couldn’t stop pondering over this all throughout practice, even with the added pressure of time. _I still can’t find it, though. I still lack what would serve as the backbone this program needs._

The future looked gloomy, and Yuuri thought briefly about all the days he would be spending alone after the competition was over.

 

His despondent mood vanished when Victor announced that he had flown in all his old costumes from Russia. As he perused the various boxes, Yuuri was enthralled. These outfits that Yurio considered to be tacky held so much meaning. It was slightly overwhelming– each piece of fabric he picked up was so familiar yet so surreal to be holding.

He saw another one that made his heart soar, and he was careful not to burn it. “This is from the Junior World Championship!”

“Oh, yeah.” Victor picked up on his interest. “I had long hair at the time so my costume suggested male and female genders at once.”

Yuuri smiled, remembering the grainy recording that he had seen hundreds of times.“I choose this one!”

 

Minako’s apartment complex was loud, and the sun had set hours before. A dog howled mournfully as Yuuri pressed the buzzer repeatedly, praying that Minako would wake up.

“Who is it?” she snapped as she opened the door, features immediately softening as she saw Yuuri.

“You want to practice in my studio this late at night?”

“Minako-sensei, I need you to teach me something.” Yuuri’s voice was filled with conviction.

Minako didn’t say a word, but her eyes told Yuuri that she had already agreed.

 

Yuuri could hear the sea of reporters from inside the locker room, and his fear heightened even more when he, along with Yurio, was shoved in front of an ecstatic-looking reporter.

“We have skaters Katsuki Yuuri and Yuri Plisetsky here. Both your short programs were choreographed by Victor Nikiforov. You’ll be presenting them today in competition. Tell us how you feel going into the event!”

“Um,” Yuuri was at a loss for words. “It’d be great if you tried the hot springs afterwards.”

“Hey, we’re not asking you to promote tourism. Promote yourself!” The reporter looked mildly irritated.

“We don’t need two Yuris,” Yurio looked indifferent. “I’ll crush him.”

“Yes, that’s it! Thanks for giving us what we wanted to hear.”

As they were ushered into the locker room by Victor, the reporter called out enthusiastically, wishing them both luck.

 

The music blaring through his headphones was soft and gentle, and Yuuri didn’t think much of it until he recognized the words of _Stammi Vicino._ It was beautiful, and Yuuri found himself getting lost in the melody, ignoring Yuri Plisetsky’s exit until Victor had his hand on the small of his back, guiding him to the door.

Yurio was doing remarkably well. _I can tell it’s completely different from what I saw in practice._ His mind was drawn back to the day that they were at the waterfall. _That’s when Yurio’s performance changed_.

_No one can look away._

Something shifted as Yurio successfully landed his quads, though. His demeanor became more controlled, and Yuuri found himself getting anxious for Yurio. _He’s losing his grip on agape_.

The Russian skater’s performance ended, and Yuuri could tell that Yurio was not pleased at himself, his teeth gritted as he straightened his back.

“Yurio! That was the best performance I’ve seen from you so far! Go on, greet the audience!” Though the boy was obviously in a foul mood, Victor looked happy enough with Yuri’s performance.

_That was amazing. He’ll definitely rank among top senior division skaters._

The realization hit Yuuri like a train, and he sank to his knees, trying very hard to remain at a normal body temperature.

 _If I lose, Victor will go back to Russia._ He stared at his skates, which were blurring in and out of focus. _I don’t want that. I have to win. I want to win._

Suddenly, Victor was in front of him. “Yuuri. It’s your turn.”

Yuuri felt a surge of heat rise up inside him like bile, and he gasped, covering his mouth. This time, he thought not of hot springs nor snowy mountain peaks, but of Victor’s cool hand holding his. To his surprise, it worked, effectively calming him down.

“I’m going to become a super tasty pork cutlet bowl, so please watch me!” He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Victor. “Promise?”

The question lingered in the air for a second as Victor processed it. “Of course,” he stated as if it was obvious. “I love pork cutlet bowls.”

And that was all the encouragement that Yuuri needed. Victor was going to watch him, and that was all that mattered.

 

“We’re pleased to introduce a skater that represents Japan, a late bloomer who’s become a rising star. Katsuki Yuuri!”

The crowd was especially enthusiastic, people shouting his name over and over again. After all, Yuuri noted with a sense of pride, he was their ace.

“He will skate to On Love: Eros.” The announcer continued, the fact that Yuuri was skating as katsudon causing murmurs to fill the stands.

The music began softly, seductively. _Who am I dancing for?_ Yuuri swung his hips out further than he was used to. _I know who_. He looked over at Victor, throwing him the most sultry glance possible. He heard Victor whistle.

Eros truly started after that. Yuuri glided across the ice, his movements instantly dazzling the audience. He thought he did well on his step sequences– that had always been his strong suit, and judging by the audience’s enthusiasm, they thought so too.

Still, it was difficult to encompass such a flirtatious role without letting himself get carried away. There was still the potential danger that his elemental affinity would flare as he turned on his seductive side.

 

The idea had come to him while he was burning off anxiety the night before, waist-deep in water. That he would use the fire to his advantage– more importantly, he would be the woman in the story of Eros. He had headed to Minako’s straight from the waterfront.

“I want you to teach me how to move in feminine ways,” he had said to her. “Trying to be the playboy isn’t me. I want to be the most beautiful woman in town, who seduces the playboy. I won’t drastically change any moves, but I think this is a lot closer to how I feel.”

Minako had agreed with him about it. “You’re finding your eros, Yuuri.” She laughed. “It’s funny that _you’re_ the one that I have to teach to be fiery. One would think it’d come naturally to you.”

Then she tapped his calf with her foot. “This foot is sloppy when you make that turn.”

Yuuri had smiled. “Victor said the same thing.”

 

He landed his triple axel. Imagining Victor watching him from the sidelines, he smirked. _If he wants seductive, I’ll give him seductive._ He went in for his quad Salchow, but had to step out. He vaguely noticed that the ice where his hand touched had melted the slightest bit, but he had to ignore it. _I will be better than this,_ he thought. _A mistake like this isn’t enough to make me lose my charms._

He thought of how the sky was always so cool when he and Victor sat together, the chill in the air seeping into their skin. Their palms pressed together– that was a type of eros that would not melt the ice, yet Yuuri was fond of it enough that he could channel his seductive side.

And so Yuuri used it. He tried to paint the scene as warmer, as filled with more curves and abstract scenarios looming in the shadows where moonlight didn’t reach.

 _I’m better than any woman out there,_ he told the world. _You ask why?_ He ended his routine with a flourish, answering the unspoken question.

The crowd roared, and Yuuri finally felt the heat of the moment hit him. _I need to get off the ice,_ he thought.

“Yuuri!” Victor reached out, his arms wide. “That was the tastiest pork cutlet bowl I’ve ever seen! Wonderful”

“Th-Thank you,” Yuuri blushed, turning into a stuttering mess as soon as he was on solid ground again.

“But can I say something?”

“S-sure.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “What was with your triple axel out of the spread eagle?” His voice seemed to get higher and higher, Yuuri drowning out the criticisms as he fell back onto the ice, getting up only after he heard it hissing softly.

He could get used to this.

 

Yurio had disappeared in all the chaos, but Yuuri was more concerned with not setting fire to the beautiful bouquet of flowers he had been handed.

“Katsuki Yuuri has won the Hot Springs on Ice event! A word, please.” The announcer’s microphone was shoved into his face.

“Oh, um…” Yuuri felt Victor’s gloved hand grip his arm reassuringly. Yuuri smiled softly, raising his head.

“I’m going to try and win the next Grand Prix Final with Victor! Thank you for your continued support!”

As the crowd cheered to demonstrate its approval, Yuuri felt his heart swell with gratefulness.

_The battle for my very last figure skating season has begun._

 

Victor was waiting for him that night, even though it was especially cold, the wind biting into any exposed skin. “As your _coach,_ I can’t have you getting sick, Yuuri,” Victor said as Yuuri took his usual seat. “I brought us a blanket!”

They huddled together, Yuuri subconsciously raising his body temperature when he noticed that Victor was a bit _too_ cold.”

“What did you think?” Yuuri asked tentatively.

“Hmm? Oh…” Victor’s voice trailed off. “What did  _you_ think, Yuuri?”

“I… I will do better.”

Victor turned to Yuuri, gazing at him for just a moment before tucking a renegade strand of hair behind Yuuri’s ear.

“I believe that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this version of the chapter was better! I really appreciate y'all pushing me to be a less crap writer.  
> The next chapter is gonna have a lot more elemental affinity stuff and maybe someone finding out about Yuuri ;)))))))) 
> 
> [this is my tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/) hmu
> 
> Btw I tend to update once a week for those want to know :)


	4. episode 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> follows ep four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sell your soul for this fanfic but if you don't want to commit that much then just kudos/comment lmao
> 
> [here's my tumblr please love me](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)

Yuuri woke up to his bedsheets on fire, Makkachin pacing uneasily on the other side of the room.

He mumbled out a grainy apology after willing the flames to stop, holding his arm out to the fluffy poodle apologetically. Makkachin was more than happy to oblige, jumping back onto the bed only after Yuuri had kicked off his tattered blankets. Blearily, Yuuri checked his phone.

 _8:50_ , the time read.

Yuuri shrieked, changing impossibly fast before rushing out the door, calling out a half-baked apology to the deeply annoyed dog resting uneasily on Yuuri’s bed.

The wind was cool on his face, but Yuuri scarcely felt it, hot blood almost pulsating under his skin.

“Sorry! I overslept!” Yuuri saw Victor standing alone in the middle of the rink, stance almost pensive.

Victor turned suddenly, letting ribbons of water arc out into the air, twisting themselves into beautiful patterns. “Good morning, Yuuri!” his lips formed an ethereal smile.

He didn’t seem to mind that Yuuri was late. “Resting is a part of work too,” he said as he towered over Yuuri, who had fallen to his knees on the ice in apology.

Yuuri had long since gotten used to being on ice, but he still thought that the fiery part of himself was constantly at war with it. He skated well with Victor around, the concept of having a coach starting to become more familiar to him, but there were still moments that Yuuri envied him deeply.

Victor treated the ice like an old friend, sometimes even a lover, and Yuuri felt like he was intruding. He was jealous of Victor’s ability to have such a beautiful relationship with the ice.

Yuuri jumped, the weight of his thoughts evidently weighing him down as he missed his landing entirely, his body reacting to the cold ice.

“Yuuri, you tend to flub your jumps when something is on your mind.” Victor noted, a trace of curiosity in his voice.

Yuuri didn’t say anything back. He slumped onto the ice, thinking of cold mountains, of Victor’s cool hand, and of hot springs.

“Are you okay?” Victor was suddenly on the ice with him, gently touching Yuuri’s shoulder. “Do you need to stop?”

This got Yuuri’s attention. “No,” he whispered, rousing himself. “I’m fine.”

Victor was the one that said nothing this time.

 

“Yuuri, maybe we should nix having three quads in your free program.”

The younger man turned suddenly from his position in the hot springs, glad that the steam unfurling itself in the hot spring effectively concealed his surprise.

“Victor, if I want to win the Grand Prix Final, I need those.”

“Why?” Victor asked, stretching slowly, letting water drip carelessly from his palms. “Even if there’s only one quad, just get a perfect score on the program components.” He made it sound like it was the easiest thing in the world.

And it _was_ , Yuuri realized. To Victor, it _was_ the easiest thing in the world.

“I have to change,” Yuuri put his head on the side of the pool, feeling the grimy stone on his forehead.

“Yuuri, do you know why I decided to become your coach?” Victor asked for the second time.

“Because you want me to stop restrai–”

“Another reason.” Victor slipped his hands into Yuuri’s, letting cold water flow onto Yuuri’s arms, making him shiver. He lifted Yuuri from the pool. “I was drawn to you because of the music… The way you skate like your body is creating music.”

He pulled Yuuri forward, Yuuri’s warm hands touching the smooth skin over Victor’s heart. “I want to create a high-difficulty program to maximize that.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed possessively. “Only _I_ can do that.”

Yuuri felt his heart soar, and Victor ended up pulling Yuuri completely out of the pool, helping him stretch.

 

“You’re so warm,” Victor said to him as they were walking down the beach one night. He had insisted on going out, and somehow, Yuuri had lead him to the sea.

“Yes,” Yuuri said uneasily as they stopped walking.

“What’s your favorite color?” Victor asked as they settled onto the wet sand.

“Blue,” Yuuri replied almost immediately, blushing so hard that he was sure the tips of his ears were red too.

“Why?” Victor asked.

 _Because of you,_ Yuuri thought. _Because blue reminds me of your eyes._ “Water,” he said instead. “It’s blue.”

“Ah.” Victor seemed to be the slightest bit disappointed at this, and Yuuri picked up on that.

“What?” he asked, nudging Victor gently. “Too predictable?”

“No, Yuuri,” Victor chuckled breathily. “You never fail to surprise me. It’s… it’s nothing.”

“What’s yours?” Yuuri stared at the waves while asking, too uncomfortable to look at him.

Victor pondered this for a moment, closing his eyes delicately. “Red,” he decided. “It’s elusive. And _sexy._ ”

Yuuri felt his face get hot. “Interesting,” he managed to choke out.

Yuuri wanted to tell him. Yuuri wanted to tell him _so badly–_ he felt the ache of want permeate through his body, a desperate, burning sensation that was incomparable to anything that Yuuri had felt before. “Victor, I…”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence because he felt Victor’s grip slacken in his hand. Victor’s head was on Yuuri’s shoulder, his chest rising and falling rhythmically as he slept.

Yuuri tried not to laugh from the ridiculousness of the situation.

“Victor,” he whispered. “I’m a fire user.”

 

“Yuuri? I haven’t seen you since the Grand Prix Final!” Celestino’s voice was grainy because of the audio, but it was distinctive. Yuuri subconsciously missed him, and Detroit in general. He took one look at Victor’s face and felt like Victor understood, but there was another emotion lurking on the older man’s face, and Yuuri didn’t know the word for it in Japanese, English, or Russian.

It heightened when Celestino insulted Victor, telling him to “cut it out” already. Yuuri jumped slightly from his position on the bench; Victor’s left hand had poured out water as cold as ice, soaking the side of Yuuri’s pants.

“Why didn’t you let Yuuri choose his program music?” Victor asked, ignoring the slight. Victor ran his hand over Yuuri’s thigh slowly, dragging his fingers on the fabric to dry Yuuri off, apologizing with his eyes.

“Yuuri only brought me a piece once,” said Celestino. “I believe it was composed by an acquaintance.”

Yuuri remembered that day. The piece had made him come alive, feeling icy and warm at the same time. It had taken him days to work up the courage to ask Celestino to give it a listen, and yet his anxiety had flared at the most crucial moment, ruining his resolve.

Celestino saw right through him, it seemed. He mentioned Yuuri’s crippling lack of self-confidence, and Yuuri felt Victor’s hand get wet again, the center of his palm bursting with restrained energy. It reminded him deeply of Yurio, and his inability to control his powers. But this was Victor…

“Yuuri… Could I hear this music he mentioned?” Yuuri kept his eyes closed, and he felt Victor’s cool breath the side of his neck. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Victor grazed his fingers on Yuuri’s jawline, letting water drip down cavalierly.

Yuuri felt goosebumps emerge where the water fell. “Right,” he said, voice tainted with indecision. “Sorry.”

 

Yuuri needed to get away that night, away from everyone. They were all so hopeful, and at times like this when his anxiety spiked, he felt like he could hurt someone if he stayed too close to people. There were incidents when he was younger. When he felt the panic set in, everything around him seemed so vulnerable, so _flammable._ Yuuri would feel hyperaware of the fact that he was dangerous, and if he wanted, he could cause so much damage. Thoughts like this scared him, making him more and more uncertain of the path that he chose in life. It was reckless– extremely reckless.

He walked straight out of the door and kept walking until the soles of his feet ached and and his every intake of breath felt less suffocating. He went to the beach, but this time he felt an overwhelming sense of madness overtake him. He went straight to the dock, and it took him less than a second to light it on fire. He used the hottest flames he could channel, before he pressed his hands to his face and crumpled onto the ground, screaming out of frustration as he pressed the heat of his palms to his cheekbones.

 _This is your student, Victor,_ he thought bitterly. _This is who you chose_.

 

Once Yuuri had calmed down, he put out the charred remains of the rickety dock, wincing as they crackled and popped as the old wood died as a result of the now-vanquished flames.

He pulled his headphones out of his bag, listening to the piece that Victor had dismissed earlier that day. Lukewarm was the best way to describe Victor’s reaction, really.

 _My usual way was to have my coach pick something from what was available, and let him choreograph it too._ Yuuri felt Victor’s hand on his face, even though that was days ago. He shivered. _But Victor wasn’t like that._

Even in his lethargic state, Yuuri felt the stirrings of inspiration. He had to get home.

 

He could see the mechanical pencil that he was holding start to melt a little, and he loosened his grip on it slightly.

He needed help, and there was only one person he could call.

“Hey, Phichit-kun?” It felt nice saying that out loud after a year.

“Yuuri!” Phichit looked as cheerful as ever, his eyes widening when he saw Yuuri’s face. “It’s been a while.” The Thai skater brought the phone closer to his face. “Detroit’s boring now that you’re gone. Oh, you should come visit Bangkok. I’ll show you around!”

“Hey, Phichit-kun, do you remember how I had a music demo made?”

“Oh yeah! By the conservatory student?”

“Yeah, it got shelved in the end…”

He remembered distinctly her reaction after he told her that her composition wasn’t going to be used. She was an air user, which wasn’t as uncommon as it was on the other side of the world. He felt a cold breeze as she handed the demo back to him. “You keep it,” she had said.

Sensing Yuuri’s thought process, Phichit told him that he would try and get the girl’s contact information again. Yuuri was grateful.

“One last thing,” Yuuri gulped his anxiety down.

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

Phichit leaned even closer, eyebrows arched in excitement. “Ooh, tell me, Yuuri! I won’t tell a soul!”

Yuuri lit his forefinger on fire.

Phichit slipped, and Yuuri could hear the _thunk_ of what he presumed was Phichit’s tailbone hitting the solid ice.

He got up immediately, though, brushing himself off. “How long?? In Detroit too??”

Yuuri nodded.

“Yuuri Katsuki, you have a _lot_ of explaining to do when I see you next.”

 

 _This piece has been bothering me for a while. It really is a bit weak… But I guess that makes sense._ In the time period that Yuuri had asked the girl to compose the demo, he was in a disheveled state, struggling to manage his powers in a new environment but simultaneously wanting to expand upon his ice skating potential.

 _She did capture how pathetic my career was pretty well._ The thought should’ve hurt, but it only motivated Yuuri further as he ran along the deserted streets. _My underwhelming life in competitive figure skating._

 

Ice Castle felt colder today, more foreign than ever. The air was so cold that it stung every time that Yuuri inhaled. It didn’t help that Victor was chastising him for not choosing his music yet.

“Why can’t you trust your own decisions?” Victor asked, frustratedly, staring down at Yuuri from the other side of the rink wall.

_Maybe because I’m not confident. I’m not you, Victor. I could burn this entire rink if I wanted to. I could burn you. I could hurt you, Victor. I can’t be trusted; I–_

“I’m sorry.” The words came out hollow, and Yuuri didn’t know if Victor could tell.

 

Over the next few days, it became apparent that Victor _did_ notice. He insisted on doing everything together, no matter how many times Yuuri rejected him.

One morning, it became too much. Yuuri burned through his bedsheets. “I can’t stand this guilt!”

Annoyingly enough, as if fate had tugged on some strings, Victor swung Yuuri’s bedroom door wide open.

“Good morning, Yuuri,” he smiled sweetly. “Let’s go to the ocean. Maybe some water will help you relax.”

Yuuri blanched.

 

“Hm, the dock isn’t here anymore.”Victor noted. “I wonder what happened to it.”

Yuuri stayed quiet, paralyzed with fear of being discovered. Luckily, Victor didn’t notice his unease.

“Ever since I came here, I’m reminded of St. Petersburg, when I hear seagulls in the early morning.”

There is a charged pause, and Yuuri shifts, feeling uncomfortable.

“I never thought I’d leave that city, so I never used to notice the seagulls’ cries. Do you ever have times like that?”

“There was a girl, in Detroit.” Yuuri hesitated for a moment. “I… she found out something about me, by accident. Something deeply personal.” She had seen one spark –only one– but it had been enough. “When she hugged me to comfort me, I shoved her away without thinking about it.”

 _“That’s a nasty burn,”_ the doctor had told her, examining the arm that Yuuri had shoved away. _“What happened?”_

“I didn’t want her to think I was feeling unsettled.”

 _“Just a cooking accident– I was being careless.”_ She had nodded at him ever-so-slightly, and in that moment Yuuri knew that his secret was safe.

“My family has never treated me like I’m weak,” Yuuri confessed. “I took that for granted.”

“Yuuri, you’re not weak. No one else thinks that, either.”

 _What kind of water user are you?_ Yuri echoed in Yuuri’s head.

“What do you want me to be to you?” Victor’s tone was as befuddling as the question. “A father figure? A brother? A friend?”

“No,” Yuuri said, face buried in the fabric of his oversized hoodie.

“Then your boyfriend, I guess.”

Yuuri’s hands sizzled as he shot up, and he thanked his lucky stars that Victor was looking away. “I want you to stay who you are, Victor. I’ve always looked up to you.”

Victor’s face softened.

“I ignored you because I didn’t want you to see my shortcomings.” _What kind of water user are you?_ Yuuri heard the question again, but this time in Victor’s voice. He brushed it aside. “I’ll make it up to you with my skating!”

“I won’t let you off easy, then.” Victor smiled as he held his palm face up, a figure skater formed from the water. “That’s my way of showing my love.” The skater receded, and Yuuri took Victor’s hand.

_When I open up, he meets me where I am._

 

The next salient thought came to him as he was furiously typing on his laptop. _I shouldn’t be afraid to open up more!_ He thought briefly of telling Victor about his fire affinity, but decided against it. Instead, he opened the reply from his former classmate.

 

“She’s going to redo the music.”

“Okay, I look forward to it!” Victor was as supportive as ever, running a damp hand over Yuuri’s hair, ruffling the unkempt strands further. Yuuri didn’t mind.

“Until she’s done… please teach me all the jumps that you can do!”

Victor’s grin gave him his answer.

 

“I’ve thought this for a while, but you have pretty good stamina…” Victor prattled on, but Yuuri was more focused on something else.

He poked the part in Victor’s hair before he could stop himself, his gloved hand preventing him from transferring any heat.

“S-Sorry!” He turned as red as his shirt.

“Is it getting that thin?” Victor’s voice was filled with more concern than anger.

“No, no, no! Everything’s okay!” Yuuri tried to convince him.

“I’m hurt… I can’t recover from this.” Victor slumped onto the ice, splaying out his limbs in self-pity. Yuuri got off the ice before he melted it into oblivion.

 

He got his music back in record time, and it just so happened to be around midnight. Victor was already fast asleep, but Yuuri felt obligated to wake him up. “Victor, listen!” He bounded onto Victor’s bed, not thinking about anything but the music, and then he tripped over Victor’s leg. “Oops, sorry! The music for the free program is done!”

He put the headphones for Victor, and his calloused palms touched the side of Victor’s face and came back wet– Victor lost some control on his powers when he was surprised.

The silver-haired man said nothing for a long time, but then he sat up and nodded giddily.

 _This is it,_ Yuuri thought.

 

“Yuuri, did you change the theme?” Victor’s question was direct, but not aggressive.

“Oh, um,” Yuuri’s palms became sweaty. “The theme is ‘on my love.’”

Victor stared at him for a moment. “That’s the best theme.”

They worked efficiently after that, Yuuri channeling Victor’s cool gaze into his routine. It felt nice to know that their dynamic fit, that Yuuri belonged with Victor. It felt comfortable, and Yuuri even felt like the ice was starting to trust him too.

 

The assignments came in soon after that, and Yuuri was delighted to find that he was to go to the Cup of China, and that Phichit was going to be there too. The second one, Russia’s Rostelecom Cup, Yuuri was less excited for, but Victor was ecstatic.

_It’ll be my first time in a Grand Prix without Victor in the lineup._

The thought hurt Yuuri more than he would like to admit. It didn’t help that the Nishigōris insinuated that skating fans worldwide might hate him for stealing away Victor.

The white-hot ball of fire in his clenched hands went unnoticed by his company, but Yuuri still felt it pressing onto his skin, yearning to be released.

It felt like not telling Victor was having a physical toll on him as the stakes got higher– his powers were becoming more difficult to control as tensions grew.

“Good luck,” his father told him, and Yuuri felt his heart soar.

“Thank you…” he trailed off, not knowing what to say.

_Until now, I thought I was fighting all by myself._

Yuuri stepped into the ocean.

_But now that Victor’s here, that’s totally changed._

For the first time in years, he submerged himself completely.

_Some things are still the same._

He felt the water hiss at the flames arising from his hands, but he refused to move, feeling the sensation of water on his hot skin.

_Some have changed. Everything feels so new._

He came up for air, sputtering initially as his lungs filled with air once more.

_I may never be able to regain what I’ve lost, but I can clearly see what’s in front of me now._

He stopped his fire, and sat there, the moonlight reflecting an off-white onto the blue-green waters.

_I don’t know how long Victor will stick around, or how long my body will hold up._

He thought of the piece he had entitled “Yuuri on Ice” just a few hours earlier.

_God, give me Victor’s time, if only just for now._

He stood up slowly, a part of Hasetsu itself.

And then Katsuki Yuuri emerged, reborn from fire forged in water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do realize that this was more of a filler chapter, but I feel like you guys really needed to see the pent-up nature that Yuuri's powers are starting to take (it is a slow burn after all). I'm probably going to take the executive decision of combining episodes five and six for the next chapter so I can get to the highly anticipated episode seven scenes. I don't have a lot of coursework this week (thank the heavens above) so I maaay be able to get a chapter out but idk because I have a flight to catch on Friday morning. We'll see. 
> 
> Want to stay updated on when the next chapter will be out? [hmu on tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [UPDATE AS OF 04/04/17]: The next chapter will have only ep five, and the chapter after that will have a combined Cup of China chapter (both eps six/seven). Expect an update this week!


	5. episode 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> follows ep 5 with some noticeable differences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive!! Sorry for making you wait for so long for an update. I promise I will try to get better at this writing thing.
> 
> If you liked this chapter, you have to kudos/comment sorry I don't make the rules
> 
> Have strong feelings about this chapter or have any ideas for future chapters? Tell me in the comments below or [on my tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)

Their flight seemed to be almost surreal, a plasticky taste settling itself in the back of Yuuri’s mouth. Victor had fallen asleep early, the water user resting his head on Yuuri’s shoulder and almost instantly knocking out. Yuuri didn’t blame him– it was currently 2:30 AM, and after the hassle of dealing with a _very_ delayed flight, even he was fighting to stay awake long enough to tuck his boarding pass away.

He had held his breath when handing his pass to an airline employee to be scanned; legally, fire users had to be identified on airplanes as potential hazards. Luckily for Yuuri, she barely glanced at his pass, moving onto Victor’s in an instant. And even if she had seen it _and_ somehow recognized Yuuri as an international skater, she was bound by airline policy to keep quiet. Still, it made Yuuri’s heart beat so loud he could’ve sworn that the entire terminal could hear it.

Yuuri moved slowly, in heavily constricted moves, and managed to shove the pass into his carry-on. Victor’s head dipped forward because of the movement of Yuuri’s shoulder. Yelping, Yuuri caught Victor’s head before it hit the seat in front of him. Somewhat reluctantly, he let Victor’s head rest on his shoulder once more.

It was fine at first– Yuuri noticed how tense he was ten minutes later and forced himself to relax his shoulders, sighing slightly as his muscles eased. Then, the unconscious Victor seemed to like this more. He buried his face in the crook of Yuuri’s neck, ostensibly relishing the warmth radiating from Yuuri’s bare skin, and Yuuri forced himself not to scream.

_The world would never forgive me if I caught on fire and marred Victor Nikiforov’s beautiful face._

That seemed to do the trick, but he was still warm enough for Victor to notice (and enjoy) the temperature difference. Victor grabbed Yuuri’s hand, eyes still closed, and firmly intertwined their fingers, sending out a radiating coolness from his palm that Yuuri had never experienced before.

“Victor?” Yuuri whispered. “Are you awake?”

No response.

“Victor?” Yuuri said more harshly, trying to make sure that Victor was still asleep.

Again, there was no response.

Yuuri knew it was risky and reckless and utterly _selfish_ , but he sent a pulse of heat through his palm, responding to Victor. It wasn’t enough to hurt anyone– about as powerful as the momentary tingle others felt when the onsen water was a bit _too_ hot, but as he untangled himself from Victor (who had shifted in his sleep), Yuuri knew that Victor definitely felt that, asleep or not.

He just hoped to whatever higher power there was that Victor wasn’t awake, and that he didn’t know. Something in his gut was telling him that there _had_ to be more left, that Victor wasn’t his coach just because he wanted to train a fire user. Deep in his gut, Yuuri was afraid that was true. He was terrified that Victor _knew,_ and that he was only here because he saw Yuuri as a novelty.

Yuuri didn’t want to be the next surprise that Victor laid out for the world to experience.

 

 _I’m a top skater certified by the JSF,_ he reminded himself. _These are my people._

The Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship was a sore spot for him, though, because of his spectacular failures the year before at Nationals.

He had already let his country down before, and he was determined not to do it again.

Yuuri clenched his fists loosely, letting smokeless fire escape from the palms of his hands, hidden by his skin, but forced to stay weak, like the fire from cheap matches.

His concentration was broken when a still-sleeping Victor wrapped his arms around Yuuri’s shoulders in a position that Yuuri was sure would make the silver-haired man ache the next day.

“Too far…” Victor muttered before slurring something in Russian. “Warm.”

Slowly, Yuuri eased into the gesture. “Better?” he asked pointlessly, knowing the other man couldn’t give a response.

He sent another pulse, this time from his neck, and and Victor moved even closer, personal space be damned.

And, just for a moment, Yuuri felt like he was harmless.

The notion was banished, however, when the flight took off and Yuuri fully realized that he was an enormous liability for the airline, especially when in a cramped metal tube in the sky. The flight attendants had done nothing to indicate that they knew –and Yuuri knew they probably didn’t– but the thought still set him on edge.

Eventually fatigue came crashing in, however, and Yuuri’s vision gradually tunneled. The last thing he remembered was a faint, cool pulse coming from a hand grasping his.

 

He was the oldest one amongst the four sitting at the bench, and he knew it. Many fans still considered him to be Japan’s ace, and he appreciated that, but looking at his competition, he was worried that he was out of place.

What made it worse, however, was when he was chosen to go first. He was tempted to melt the little plastic card with ‘one’ emblazoned on it, but he resisted. Sitting back on the bench, he cursed his terrible luck.

He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he _almost_ didn’t notice the skater trembling next to him. Almost.

“I got to see you draw the first spot in person again, Yuuri-kun! I love it!” The boy waved his arms around happily, and splashed water on Yuuri’s face.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Yuuri-kun!” The boy turned a smooth shade of scarlet. “Let me dry you…”

“I can handle it,” Victor interjected smoothly, running his hand over Yuuri’s skin. “I am his coach, after all.” Yuuri’s heart pounded as Victor’s delicate finger traced the outline of his lips.

 

“Don’t you remember me?” the skater asked, indignant and determined to continue speaking. Staring at Yuuri’s blank expression, he swooned uneasily, a gesture that was odd to see.

“Next up is skater Minami,” a woman called.

“Right here! I’m Minami Kenjiro!” he raised his hand like he was in class, but he was so nervous that water came tumbling down from his outstretched palm and onto his red-blonde hair. It was a problem easily fixed by running his hand through the locks, but Minami flushed so deeply Yuuri was afraid he may faint.

_Who’s he again?_

 

“We’ve timed him to peak at the Grand Prix Final, so this isn’t a problem,” Victor answered a question loudly around a crowd of reporters. “He can take it easy and earn a personal best score today!”

Yuuri’s face darkened in mild horror as he turned to face Victor, explaining his crushing losses the year before, which could not be chalked up to physical injury but lack of mental strength.

“Wow,” Victor responded after Yuuri’s mini-rant. He swiped a finger over Yuuri’s cheek, letting water pool into a little line on Yuuri’s cheek. Yuuri traced the line with his own finger, with Victor still staring at him. No flames showed, but Yuuri increased his body temperature and focused on drying the water through the heat– it was kind of like evaporation.

It worked.

Victor’s eyes widened. “How did you–”

“All skaters and coaches, please head to the rink!” an employee announced loudly.

Victor changed his demeanor instantly. He turned to face the cameras again, smiling rather gaudily, and yet he managed to pull it off.

After sending light ribbons of water towards the reporters (Yuuri swore one of them fainted), Victor pressed a hand on the small of Yuuri’s back and guided him towards the double doors.

 _We’ll talk later,_ he seemed to say nonverbally.

 

The ice was ignoring him, as usual, and he tried not to notice how it _reacted_ to Minami– the younger skater was greeting it as if it was an older sibling. Yuuri felt ill at ease. _I haven’t been in a single competition since last year’s Nationals,_ he reasoned. _I’m just out of practice._

“Makkachin’s cheering for you too!” Victor looked as jubilant as ever, clutching a tissue-holder that looked like his poodle.

“Oh yeah. Real cute.” Yuuri didn’t mean to sound so cavalier, but it seemed to bother Victor all the same.

“Try to be happier,” Victor said.

In response, Yuuri pushed away from the barrier and slid easily across the expanse of ice.

 _I have to figure out if I’m in good enough shape for the Grand Prix series._ He tried a series of moves, muscles working out the specifics of his actions naturally. _The other skaters don’t matter._

He stopped suddenly, the prickly feeling on the back of his neck indicating that someone was staring at him. Yuuri shook his head. _Focus._

 

The competition was about to start and Victor was missing. Yuuri was panicked, and he could feel his control on his powers loosening slightly, as if he was disconnected from his own abilities. Anxiety rose like bile in his throat.

“Have you seen Victor?” He asked Takeshi and Minako. “The competition’s about to start.”

Then his fears were assuaged as he spotted familiar grey hair amongst a crowd of young girls.

“Why did you change clothes?” he asked Victor, who had changed into a slim-fitting suit.

“What can I say?” Victor blew a watery kiss at him. “Today is my glorious debut as a coach, so I should be in formal dress.”

“You’re right,” Yuuri conceded as his face heated.

 

Yuuri processed Victor saying something next to him, but he couldn’t hear it– it was distorted because Yuuri was more focused on keeping his cool.

When Yuuri glided onto the ice for warm ups, he tried to block out the feeling of panic that was seeping into the corners of his mind.

 _Now is not the time,_ he told the ice. _Don’t freak me out like this. I can’t get nervous already at this stage._

Six minutes was over quickly. He knew that the crowd could tell that something was on his mind, and when he skated back to Victor, he was met with narrowed eyes and a concerned expression.

He chose to ignore it, instead taking a large swig of water from his bottle, letting the cool feeling gush downwards and settle in his stomach.

“Yuuri,” Victor’s voice had taken an odd tone. “Turn around.”

“Huh?”

“Turn around, okay?”

Yuuri did as he was told, digging his toe picks into the ice to keep himself steady.

Nothing happened at first, but then Yuuri felt strong arms wrap around him, and Victor’s hands radiated cold even through his thickly padded gloves.

“Seduce me with all you have.” Victor’s breath was hot, ghosting over the side of Yuuri’s face, and it did nothing to help Yuuri strengthen his focus on the ice. “If your performance can charm me, you can enthrall the entire audience.”

That’s exactly what Yuuri intended to do, and as a rink employee signaled to him to take his position in the center of the ice, Yuuri was even more determined to prove the world wrong.

 _I am good enough,_ he thought. _I am good enough for the Grand Prix. I am good enough for Victor._

The music started, the sultry tones of Eros echoing slightly as they sounded out across the rink. Yuuri locked eyes with Victor, pouring the intensity that he was restraining into his eyes, sending a clear message to his coach: _Don’t take your eyes off me._

Even if his jumps weren’t always executed with precision, Yuuri knew that he was damn good at enthralling the audience with the ambiance of his performances– it was why he had qualified for the Grand Prix Final in Sochi. He eased his way into every sequence, a heady feeling surging in his veins every time he completed a component.

He wasn’t feeling the audience’s presence, though, and it was irking him. _What’s with this lukewarm response?_ he thought. _Back at Hot Springs on Ice, they were way more enthusiastic._

He pushed it aside, however, when he thought of Victor. _I bet he would like this step sequence._

 _Seduce me,_ he heard Victor’s voice, tone playful and challenging.

He felt heat surge in his chest as he went for a spread eagle into a triple axel. He thought of water, forcing the ice to respond to him. _You will obey me,_ he commanded.

He landed the triple axel perfectly.

The quadruple Salchow was less successful, however. He had to think quickly and cool down his hand so he wouldn’t have a repeat of the handprint situation at the Hot Springs on Ice event. An over-rotation wasn’t the worst thing that could’ve happened, but it still annoyed him. He knew he could do better.

_The way you skate is like your body is creating music._

Music didn’t have anything to do with elemental affinity, and that was why Yuuri loved it so much. It was strangely freeing.

The last jump was a combination, worth the most points. It was supposed to be a quad and a triple, but Yuuri had panicked as he overheated in between the jumps and the triple turned into a double.

He started the final component of his program. _The women casts aside the man she seduced._ He imagined the scene, the woman burning out all of her emotions, pushing the man away and finding a new muse, thick tendrils of flame curling around a new person.

He finished with a flourish, the audience’s cheers ringing in his ears. What he was more focused on, however, was Victor’s reaction.

“The first half was great. But you were too focused on jumps in the second, so your performance got sloppy.”

“Right.”

“I don’t really like that kind of thing,” Victor said, and Yuuri responded obediently again, just glad to be off the ice.

“Right.”

 

“The scores, please, for Katsuki Yuuri-san.” The voice was clear and resounding, and it made Yuuri’s heart shake. “His short program score: 94.36. He is currently in first place.”

Yuuri’s heart (and his temperature) soared. It was a personal best by nearly ten points. He turned to Victor.

“Hmm… Since you weren’t under pressure, I thought you’d score in the hundreds.”

“Right, you’ve scored above a hundred points to break the world record multiple times,” Yuuri said, mostly to himself.

“Give me one second, please,” he muttered, hoping that Victor had heard him.

The bathrooms were different at this rink, Yuuri noted. They didn’t have stalls– they were more like individual rooms, which Yuuri was insurmountably grateful for.

Still, it was harshly ironic that for the second time in a competition, he was hiding from everyone.

He sat on the floor– it was a deep mahogany-colored laminate that had been freshly scrubbed. Yuuri brought his knees to his chest, curling up as small as he could, and he held his hands out, almost like saying a prayer. He let a bulb of fire escape, sighing as the pressure of hiding was relieved ever-so slightly.

It was starting to build up, Yuuri had noticed, and it was starting to worry him. His mind wandered back to his short program score. It was okay – _better than okay_ – and yet Yuuri had the prickly feeling that Victor wasn’t satisfied with that score. And why would he be? Victor could’ve easily outscored Yuuri _and_ enthralled the audience with no quads. Sometimes Yuuri wondered why Victor was doing this, and why he chose Yuuri.

Yuuri brought his palms to his face, feeling the heat glaze over his skin– searing with intensity– but not affecting him.

And for the first time in his life, Yuuri found himself wondering what it felt like to be burned.

 

“About tomorrow’s free skate,” Victor said as soon as Yuuri had returned, “Lower the difficulty of the jumps and focus on the performance.

“Huh?” Yuuri’s mouth fell open.

“You’ve never nailed them during practice, have you?”

“But–”

“It’s not a bad idea to lower the difficulty early in the season, is it?” Victor’s brows knitted in concern.

Yuuri said nothing, but the look on his face must’ve told Victor that he was hesitant to follow his command.

“You should prioritize adjusting your programs to help you reach your peak for the Grand Prix Final.” The silver-haired man leaned closer. “Are you saying you can’t listen to your coach?” Victor’s pale eyes narrowed, frustratingly unreadable, challenging Yuuri to say something, anything.

Yuuri opened his mouth then closed it. He wouldn’t take the bait.

That gave Victor a cryptic answer to an equally cryptic question, but it didn’t seem to matter.

 

“How do you feel looking ahead to the free skate?” The reporter seemed kind enough, but it was a question that Yuuri hadn’t been expecting.

“Huh? Tomorrow’s free skate–”

“Of course you’ll see Yuuri be perfect.” Victor interjected, plastering a smile on his face and turning to touch Yuuri’s face, water smoothly landing on Yuuri’s cheek.

The cameraman seemed to like this a lot; he hurriedly zoomed in on Yuuri while the reporter continued to ask questions.

 

“Did you see my “Lohengrin” performance?” The voice was high and jarring, filled with a hopeful tone. Yuuri turned to see the red-haired boy, Minami, shaking as he approached them.

“I was being interviewed, so I didn’t. Sorry,” Yuuri said cavalierly.

This was obviously not the right answer– Minami’s eyes started brimming with tears, and water pooled in his quivering hands.

“I even had a similar costume made to the one from your famous “Lohengrin” program,” he wailed, opening his jacket to reveal a shiny red, black, and white costume that was all too familiar.

Yuuri was startled, and he hunched over, examining the costume with a subtle sense of horror. “That’s a costume from my dark past…”

“You don’t have a dark past!” Minami’s tone was fierce. “Don’t make fun of me for looking up to you for so long and trying to catch up to you!”

He held out his hand, water churning rapidly in his palms as he spoke.

“I’m gonna give tomorrow’s free skate everything I’ve got! Please give it all you’ve got too, Yuuri-kun! I won’t forgive you if you slack off!”

“Wow! Skater Minami’s issued a challenge! At last year’s Nationals, skater Minami Kenjiro finished ahead of skater Katsuki,” the reporter told the camera.

Yuuri gasped, widening his eyes, recognition of the younger boy _finally_ seeping in.

_He’s the one whose total score was way higher than mine because I self-destructed. Crap._

And now he was the one that had told Yuuri to give it everything he had. Tomorrow was certainly going to be interesting.

 

Their hotel was on the cusp of lavish, but not quite. It had a decent lobby, and friendly staff, but there was nothing that made it stand out. It was, to put it simply, ordinary.

 _How fitting_ , Yuuri thought.

Victor insisted that Yuuri should sleep immediately, but Yuuri couldn’t. There was something haunting him, a phantom pain echoing in his heart, but he couldn’t place where it was coming from exactly, and he didn’t know why it was there in the first place.

“I have to shower,” Yuuri announced as he and Victor walked into their shared room.

“You need to sleep,” Victor said. “Shower tomorrow.”

Yuuri shook his head. “I have to wash my hair,” he insisted.

Victor walked over, hands outstretched. He ran his fingers through Yuuri’s hair, completely soaking it, and rubbed small circles into his scalp, massaging gently. When he finished, he ran his hands over Yuuri’s hair again and dried it instantly.

Yuuri’s breath hitched, and Victor smirked at him. “There,” Victor said with an air of smugness. “Now sleep.”

“Nice try,” Yuuri stuttered. “Shampoo exists, you know?” With that, he stepped into the restroom and quickly shut the door.

The water was scalding, and it wasn’t because Yuuri was overheated–it was because he had carelessly turned the shower to its highest setting. It wasn’t like it mattered anyway– he couldn’t get burns. This was something that made him even more rare. Even though the source of the heat wasn’t fire, it still didn’t affect him– other fire users could not say the same.

Yuuri didn’t think as he stood there, motionless save for the occasional attempt at massaging shampoo into his hair.

When he came out, Victor was gone, and Yuuri thought nothing of it. Victor, after all, didn’t have to skate tomorrow.

As he got changed into a comfortable pair of shorts and a loose-fitting cotton shirt, he felt like something was off. He slipped into the nearest shoes he could find, and, after pulling a fluffy bathrobe over his shoulders and tucking a hotel keycard into his pocket.

The hallway was significantly colder than the room, and Yuuri shivered. His feet were aching, but he couldn’t sleep without knowing where Victor was.

 _Ugh, Yuuri, it’s not like he’s your boyfriend,_ Yuuri chastised himself, but he kept walking anyway. His feet felt odd in the shoes– they were too sensitive from the shower, and the air felt thick on his skin.

Yuuri went to the swimming pool, but he didn’t know why– something was pulling him there. He wanted to dip his feet into the water and just sit for a while. What he didn’t expect to find was Victor. Yuuri saw Victor’s shirt lying on a nearby chair, and that was what prompted him to look for the older man. Yuuri didn’t see him at first, but then he focused hard on the center of the pool.

Victor was floating cross-legged, his eyes closed serenely and his silver hair mussed almost artfully, any semblance of order taken away by the water.

The expression on Victor’s face was one that made Yuuri suddenly want to cry, his heart wrenching painfully for no reason. Even through the distorted lens that the surface of the water created, Yuuri could see that Victor was fully comfortable with his element, and that stung. It was a beautiful sight to see, but Yuuri felt like shards of jealousy were pulling on his stomach, painfully.

Victor opened his eyes as soon as Yuuri dipped his feet in the water. He looked startled for a moment, but as he saw Yuuri, his features morphed into a subtle delight.

He motioned for Yuuri to join him, but Yuuri shook his head, beckoning Victor to come to him instead. Victor looked disappointed, but he stood up.

 _Victor still thinks I’m a water user,_ Yuuri reminded himself. _He thinks I can come sit with him, but I can’t._

Victor was dry when he came out of the water. He settled himself next to Yuuri, and they were both silent for a moment.

“Hi,” Victor finally said, voice crackly from disuse.

“Hi,” Yuuri breathed back.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” Victor’s voice was filled with concern.

“Why aren’t you?” Yuuri challenged weakly.

“That didn’t answer my question… Go to sleep, Yuuri.” Victor tried to sound intimidating, but Yuuri could hear the undertones of amusement in the ending lilt of his sentence.

“Make me.”

Victor was surprised by this– Yuuri could tell. He cocked his head to one side contemplatively. “Very well,” he said at last.

He stood up gracefully and lifted Yuuri into his arms, bridal style, proceeding to walk back to the hotel room.

“Hey!” Yuuri protested, breathing hard to maintain a normal body temperature. “You left your shirt!”

Victor smiled cheekily. “I’ll just buy a new one. Besides…” he looked down at Yuuri as they headed for the lobby elevators. “you’re keeping me warm enough.”

Yuuri was sure he was as red as a tomato. “Victor, I can walk now– people are staring.”

The older man didn’t seem to care. He winked at an old woman as they passed her. “Let them stare. You said ‘make me’, so I am.”

He bent his knees slightly, and told Yuuri to hit the elevator button. Yuuri did as he was told, thanking whatever higher power there was that the elevator was empty.

After some awkward adjusting, Yuuri managed to get his keycard out of his pocket and slide it into the lock. Victor kicked the door open then set Yuuri down gently on the bed.

“Finally,” Yuuri expressed. “You did it; I admit defeat.”

Victor had a disconcerting glint in his eyes.

“I’m not quite finished.” He said something in Russian, his eyes softening.

“What?” Yuuri asked.

“It’s nothing,” Victor said. “Anyway, I have to actually get you to sleep– that was part of the challenge.”

“Good luck,” Yuuri admitted honestly. “It’s very difficult for me to sleep before the free skate.”

“I think I can,” Victor said, loosely tucking Yuuri into the sheets.

Victor got into the bed, and it was silent for a long period of time.

“Yuuri?” Victor’s voice echoed in the dark room, and Yuuri opened his eyes.

“Yes, Victor?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“I was about to sleep, but _something_ woke me up.”

“Oh, sorry.” Yuuri couldn’t see him, but Victor sounded guilty.

“No, it’s okay. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Ah, I don’t know.”

Yuuri took a deep breath. When he was younger and he couldn’t sleep –the cause was usually nightmares– his mother would crawl into bed with him and hold him in her arms until he fell asleep.

“Come here,” he said before he could regret it.

“Hm?”

“My mom… she used to hold me when I couldn’t sleep.”

There was a pause. “You think it’ll work?”

“There’s one way to find out.”

Another pause. Yuuri heard the ruffling of sheets.

There was a stark contrast between their body temperatures. Victor didn’t seem to mind, however– it was much like the time they were on the airplane. Yuuri could feel Victor’s cold permeating through his t-shirt, but it didn’t feel uncomfortable. It was almost diluted, and Yuuri sensed that Victor was doing this on purpose.

His right arm was starting to hurt, and there was only one place that he could move his hand in order to be more comfortable.

Yuuri sighed and screwed up the courage to place his hand in Victor’s hair. The older man leaned into the touch, and Yuuri shakily rubbed lazy circles onto Victor’s scalp.

“Thank you,” Victor murmured softly, and Yuuri fell asleep before he could respond.

 

The bench was cold, but Yuuri was more focused on staring at the floor. Victor was standing over him, Yuuri knew, and he could faintly hear a reporter talking in the background.

“All eyes are on skater Katsuki Yuuri and his coach Victor Nikiforov,” he announced excitedly.

“Hi!” Victor said to the camera, happily running a hand through his hair. The reporter smiled at him briefly and then continued his spiel.

“Katsuki ended yesterday’s short program in first place by a large margin, scoring a personal best of 94.36. In his free skate, he will attempt three quads.”

Yuuri heard that and felt disappointment drop into the depths of his stomach. He started tying up his skates, hands shaking uncontrollably.

_Victor and I decided to lower the difficulty and only do one quad but…_

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll now begin the senior men’s singles free skate event. Will the competitors please take the ice for your warm-up?” Yuuri stretched and handed his blade guards to Victor, getting ready to step on the ice.

The boy, Minami, was standing in front of him, as if he was waiting for Yuuri to say something.

“You have six minutes,” the loudspeaker blared, and Yuuri decided that it wasn’t worth it to say anything now. He glided onto the ice.

Yuuri closed his eyes, moving somewhat aimlessly. The ice was much like Victor, he gathered. Insurmountably cold, but there was something that kept pulling him back to it.

He thought of Minami– a water user with decent talent, but he didn’t remind Yuuri of the ice at all. Maybe it was because his entire life, Yuuri had been looking at the ice in Victor’s perspective. But Minami…

Yuuri shook his head. _I have to focus on myself._

He managed to skate back in one piece, eyes closed again as he passed through the barrier between ice and solid ground.

“Yuuri… How can someone who can’t motivate others motivate himself?” Victor slammed the blade guards onto the ledge. “I’m disappointed in you.”

He walked away, fake poodle in hand, and all Yuuri could do was stare, mouth falling open.

_What about my own motivation that he just destroyed?_

 

Minami was introduced, much to the delight of hundreds of spectators. Minami’s words still echoed in the back of his head, vaguely coinciding with the soft scratching of Minami’s skates.

Yuuri turned away, but turned back around. “Good luck, Minami-kun!”

Minami’s head snapped towards him, a look of sheer disbelief on his face.

“Good luck!” Yuuri called again, joy blooming in his chest as he gauged Minami’s flustered reaction.

_Minami-kun’s firing up the crowd right off! I guess he’s popular._

Yuuri’s eyes inspected everything that Minami was doing, and there was an inherent familiarity in the way that he skated. _The way he’s so inconsistent… He reminds me of the skater I used to be._

Yuuri pursed his lips and vaguely noticed that his feet were moving.

The cheers as Minami skated echoed as he walked out.

Yuuri was outside, stretching as his headphones blared music that he could scarcely recognize. He pressed his palms against the wall, pressing his forehead against it. He breathed deeply and turned his attention to the pigmented sunset behind him. It was fiery in the best way, shining light in every direction, and yet it was slipping, succumbing to the unyielding land. Yuuri turned away. He didn’t like that concept.

 

He came back feeling more determined than ever. He walked past Minami and then made another impulsive decision– he hit Minami on the back, harder than he intended, but Minami seemed to get the message.

 

He approached Victor, who looked happier than he did before. Yuuri took off his jacket, revealing his glittery navy blue costume. It was funny, he had initially thought, because blue was the opposite of what Yuuri wanted to convey with this skate.

“This costume’s great.” Victor hummed appreciatively. “You look beautiful in it.” Under normal circumstances, Yuuri would be blushing or getting overheated, but in the mindset he was in, it was only natural to smile and take the compliment. Victor put his left hand on the side of Yuuri’s face, grazing Yuuri’s hair with wet fingers.

“Your lips are chapped,” he said as he pulled out a small jar of lip balm, dipping his fingers in the jar. He looked up with a peculiar expression on his face and rubbed Yuuri’s bottom lip before pulling him into a hug, his right hand on Yuuri’s neck. It took a moment for Yuuri to hug him back, but he sensed Victor smiling even though he couldn’t see it.

 

 _One quad or three?_ It was a simple decision in theory, but it was lingering in Yuuri’s mind as he skated to the center of the rink.

The announced was explaining the concept of Yuuri on Ice, and as he spoke, Yuuri solidified his decision.

Victor would not be happy.

 

 _I felt like I was fighting alone,_ Yuuri remembered as the music started. It felt colder as he thought of that drowning feeling he had at the beginning of this season.

The first jump was a quad-triple combination but Yuuri changed it to a quad-double. He could hear the surprise among some of the audience, but he pushed those thoughts away.

Then it was time for the part when Victor showed up as his coach, and that was a whirlwind. Yuuri was determined to continue with more quads, so he went into his salchow, but he had to step out of the landing. His hands didn’t affect the ice (thankfully), so he shook it off and continued to push through his routine.

He did a spin, and then did a triple loop, and moved on to the next portion of his program.

The music altered slightly, and Yuuri recognized it as the part where he realized his love– it was already the second half of the program.

An outside spread eagle, an Ina Bauer, and a triple axel went quickly. His triple flip had a slightly messed up landing, but at this point, Yuuri didn’t care. He was actually enjoying himself, and that was the most intoxicating feeling there was; he focused on skating in time to the music rather than the accuracy of this jumps.

He knew Victor would tell him that he was being too impatient, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

In his last jump, Yuuri miscalculated the distance between him and the wall, so he hit his head against the side of the rink, but he scarcely felt it– he was more focused on finishing. He wondered what Victor was thinking, so he decided to see.

He pointed with a flourish to Victor as the music ended, breathing hard.

 

His anxiety swelled as he locked eyes with Victor, trying to gauge his reaction. Victor stared at him for a moment, and then slapped his hand against his face. Yuuri’s throat closed, his heart palpitating. He ran a hand through his hair, nose bleeding, and he stood paralyzed in the center of the rink.

 

Victor looked up suddenly, holding out his arms, palms filled with water. Yuuri felt relief permeate through his body, and he half-skated half-ran toward Victor, staggering off the ice.

“Victor!”

When he closed his eyes and expected the cool embrace of Victor’s arms, he felt his face slam against the cold ground. “Oops, watch the nosebleed!”

 

“The scores, please, for Katsuki Yuuri-san. His free skate program score 165.20. His total score: 259.56.”

 

Yuuri felt Victor put his arms around him tightly. Yuuri felt helpless, letting Victor pull him backwards and forwards in pendulum-esque way.

“It’s amazing you scored that high after a jump like that!”

Yuuri felt the Victor turn his head, and he felt his cool breath on the side of his neck. “Thanks for proving to me that you’re able to get a lot of PCS points. And you can score even higher, so don’t feel down, okay, Yuuri?”

 

“Yuuri-kun!” They broke apart as Minami came up behind them. “I totally lost to you. I want to face you in the Grand Prix series someday! Until then, please don’t quit!”

“And another thing,” Minami came forward and bowed respectfully. “Please give me your autograph!”

The other competitors approached him as well.

“Me too!”

“Can I take a photo with you?”

Victor beamed, snaking a hand around Yuuri’s waist as Yuuri grabbed a pen from Minami’s shaking hands.

 

“Yuuri! I was so impressed!” Minako exclaimed. “It was so obvious that you took the younger skaters seriously as rivals.”

“What if you’d gotten hurt, slamming into the wall like that at the end?!” Takeshi sounded much angrier, and yet his voice was laced with pride.

“S-sorry,” Yuuri said. “At first, I was just desperate because I didn’t want to lose, but somehow, I started having a lot of fun in the middle. I don’t remember a lot about it.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri said, dazed.

 

 _That was the most fun I’ve ever had while skating in competition._ Yuuri stood on the highest step of the podium, Victor clapping proudly off the rink. Yuuri felt like his heart was on fire in the best way possible.

 

The conference room was a lovely temperature but there were far too many people sitting at the desks, and in hindsight, that was what Yuuri would blame his spiel on.

“Next, we have the skater Katsuki Yuuri, who’s thought to be the next leader of men’s singles in Japan. Please show your theme for this year.” The reporter asked the question again while Yuuri was frozen to the spot. “Skater Katsuki?”

He woke up from his daze, and he turned his board around, and it says “love”.

The cameras flashed simultaneously, every cameraman vying for the best shot.

 

“My theme in this year’s Grand Prix series is love. I’ve been helped by many people in my competitive skating career thus far, but I’ve never thought about love until now. Though I was blessed with support, I couldn’t take full advantage of it. I always like I was fighting alone.”

Yuuri swallowed the nonexistent lump in his throat.

“But since Victor showed up to be my coach, I’ve seen something totally different. My love is not something clear-cut like romantic love, but the more abstract feeling of my relationships with Victor, family, and hometown… I was finally able to realize that something like love exists all around me.”

He was very glad that Victor wasn’t here in person, or else he might not have been able to do this.

“Victor is the first person I’ve ever wanted to hold on to. I don’t really have a name for that emotion, but I have decided to call it love.”

Yuuri lifted his head.

“Now that I know what love is and am stronger for it, I’ll prove it to myself with a Grand Prix Final gold medal!”

 

It felt nice to be home. It was familiar, but it felt so new at the same time– the last competition that Yuuri had competed in seemed to revitalize him, and, initially, practice with Victor was going well.

After it got repetitive, however, Yuuri felt more unsettled day by day. He hadn’t had much time to himself and it was starting to get to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he went out to the waterfront and burned. He never thought of himself as dependent on it, but it was starting to affect his practice, and he could tell that Victor noticed it.

Their session had started off fine, but Yuuri felt a searing heat concentrated in his chest, and it was slowly getting stronger as time passed. He shook his head, trying to brush it off.

He had never let his affinity get in the way of his practice, and he wouldn’t start now.

 

“Practice is over,” Victor called as the sun started to set (Yuuri secretly thought that the sun’s heat had nothing on what he was experiencing right then). “I know it’s early, but get some rest, and I’ll see you tonight for dinner.”

Yuuri nodded tiredly, the aching fierce and unyielding, and he waited until Victor left to pick up his phone, his hands quivering.

“Hello?” A grainy voice said warmly into his ear.

“Hello. This is Katsuki Yuuri?” His voice sounded even more scared than he was, and Yuuri hated himself for it.

“Ah, Yuuri! It’s been so long since we talked! What can I do for you?”

“I know you’re busy,” Yuuri swallowed, “but would it be possible for me to set up an appointment tonight? I’ll just drop by for a couple of minutes.”

“Are you feeling alright?” The voice was concerned. “You usually never have any problems. Is it your legs? Are the jumps getting to you?”

“Ah, no… It’s–” he paused. “–a bit more serious than that.”

“ _Oh._ ” Yuuri felt relieved because it seemed like his doctor understood. “Come right over.”

 

The walk was technically quick –merely five minutes– but it felt like an eternity. The heat grew more intense, and Yuuri started coughing– an aching, dry cough that hurt coming out. His vision blurred as he pushed his way to the door.

“Yuuri, you’re he–” His doctor’s greeting died as he saw the condition that Yuuri was in.

“Water,” he barked at his assistant. “ _Now._ ”

Yuuri felt strong hands grasp him and pull him onto a stretcher. His vision blurred again, a ringing reverberating in his ears, and it didn’t focus again, everything fading into black.

 

“Yuuri? Can you hear me?” Yuuri opened his eyes blearily, wincing as white light flooded into his vision.

“Yes,” he managed to say. “Water.”

A bottle was pressed to his lips, and he drank insatiably, until it was pulled away from him.

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask you some questions. If you could try sitting up, that would be helpful.” The nurse was nice enough but she looked at him through a tight-lipped smile, manicured hands clutching a heavy brown clipboard.

There was an endless array of questions, and he answered as honestly as he could.

“I see, so you haven’t displayed your affinity for an unnaturally long time?”

“Well, yes?” he said.

She looked grave. “I’ll call in the doctor for you. It’ll be a few minutes.”

“That’s fine, thank you.”

 

While he waited, he looked around. He hadn’t been in this particular room since he was a child. The clinic was quite small because there wasn’t such a large demand for doctors in Hasetsu– there must’ve been about three patient rooms in the entire establishment. It was very well-maintained, though it was old, and that made Yuuri’s heart swell.

The doctor came in, and he looked the same as well– round face and balding head– his eyes twinkling brightly.

“Yuuri, you gave us quite a scare there.”

Yuuri got to the point. “Do you know what’s wrong with me?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Elemental affinity is something that has been combatting scientific reasoning for decades because it’s so purely emotional. That means it’s extremely difficult to classify abnormalities with the affinities…”

Yuuri’s heart sank.

“However, there is one phenomenon that I think you are displaying signs of.”

He sat down, pressing a hand onto Yuuri’s shoulder sympathetically. “Yuuri, have you ever heard of elemental suppression disorder?”

“I…” Yuuri tried to hide his horror, and it seemed to be lodged in his throat. “No.”

“Elemental suppression disorder is characterized by the build-up of elemental energy after long periods of disuse. Once the pain starts, it won’t stop until you start consistently using your element again. It’s not disorder that can be fully treated with medication, but pills do tend to help ease the constant pain. Usually this disorder is damaging, not fatal, but… I want to be honest with you. You have been suppressing your element for more than a decade, and you’re the most powerful user I’ve ever seen. If you continue like this, it could have bad consequences to your health.”

Yuuri was quiet for a long time. “Hypothetically…” His breath seemed to be stuck in his lungs. “How long could I go keeping it a secret?”

“Yuuri, that’s not a good idea… You’re intentionally putting yourself in harm’s way…”

Yuuri interrupted him, an edge in his voice. “How long?”

His doctor sighed. “A few months? Continuing like this, I don’t think you’d make it until the Gra–”

“I _will._ ” Yuuri was on the verge of crying. “I _will_ make it to the Grand Prix Final without anyone knowing. I… I’m not ready for people to know. I can’t.”

Like the world was taunting him, his hands caught on fire.

 

Yuuri walked home with pills and a doctor’s note (that he was supposed to send to the JSF to get his medication cleared) in his jacket pocket. He had been allowed to stay in the room for two hours, just burning, and it felt so betrayingly nice that it hurt.

He knew it wouldn’t fix anything immediately, of course, and he realized that he didn’t have time to be burning every night while they were abroad. It would have his consequences at this stage in the disorder, he knew, but he could do as much as possible to get as well as he could while they were still home.

He could burn here, but he and Victor were to leave for the Cup of China much too soon, and Yuuri would be scrutinized every second while he was there.

Yuuri breathed. He could do this.

 

Victor was waiting outside his room when he got back.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

“I… I took a walk.”

“Oh…” Victor looked like he didn’t believe him. “For four hours?”

“Yes,” Yuuri answered much too quickly.

Victor opened his mouth then closed it. Yuuri brushed past him and walked into his room, praying that his pill bottle wasn’t too audible, and he started to close the door.

“Yuuri, wait!” Victor sounded desperate.

“Yes?” Yuuri asked nervously.

“Want to come up onto the roof with me?” Victor asked. “It’s been too long.”

Yuuri considered this for a moment. It was a tempting offer, but he was suddenly too aware of the pill bottle that was pressed against his gut, of the aching in his chest, and of the fact that he did not deserve Victor.

“No,” Yuuri said simply, his voice hollow.

He shut the door in Victor’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hey hey I'm sorry for that angsty ending!! I have a plot outline set in my head for the next chapter so hopefully I won't have such a difficult time with writing it.
> 
> please don't hate me for what I did to yuuri– I promise I love him. 
> 
> Have strong feelings about this chapter or have any ideas for future chapters? Tell me in the comments below or [on my tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/) and drop a kudos if you're feeling extra nice :)


	6. episodes 6 and 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a combination of ep six and seven sorry if it sucks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo yo I'm back how's that for a dramatic comeback  
> I know it's been months but I promised in the tags that I wouldn't give up on this so here I am
> 
> yell at me in the comments or [on my tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)

Light streamed into Yuuri’s room, cold and uninviting, washing the bare walls with an eerie pale-blue light. _Like a hospital room._ Not a good sign, but Yuuri pushed the thought aside. Victor would be awake soon, and there was something he needed to do before that happened.

The pill bottle was an ugly orange, and the deep purple pills were even more foreboding. He was to take one in the morning and one at night. Simple instructions, but they felt fuzzy in his mind.

It stung as he swallowed a pill dry– it felt like it had settled in his chest instead of his stomach. His hands shook as he seized the glass of water on his bedside.

 

Victor took his time saying goodbye to Makkachin, squishing the dog’s face lovingly, and Yuuri felt a pang of regret, even pain. For five years Yuuri hadn’t visited Vicchan, and he was going to be regretting it for many years to come.

“Makkachin, behave while I’m gone, okay? Don’t you dare steal any steamed buns.” Victor’s hands curled around the dog as he embraced him, cuddling him softly.

“Victor, we’re going to miss the flight.” The words tasted bitter on Yuuri’s tongue as they came out, but he knew they had to be said. The melancholy in Victor’s eyes was evident, and he stood up with the reluctance of a parent being separated from child, hands noticeably wet.

The walk to the front of the onsen was short yet difficult, Yuuri’s throat constricting tightly as he gripped his luggage. He plastered an amicable smile on his face as he turned to his family.

“I’m off to Beijing.”

They all stood in front of him, beaming and appreciative. “We’ll be rooting for you. Good luck Yuuri!,” his mother said.

It made his heart hurt– or was that a symptom? He couldn’t tell anymore.

“Take care of yourself,” she added, almost as an afterthought. It was painful that she said it with such ease, as if she didn’t even entertain the notion that he _wouldn’t._

 _I’m so sorry,_ Yuuri thought.

 

The airport’s walls had smatterings of figure skating posters– some professional and some hand-drawn. Yuuri shivered as he saw a hand-drawn one obviously made by a child. Yuuri’s name was written clumsily in kanji, and he felt dulcet stirrings of affection, enraptured by the simplicity of the crayon-riddled poster.

“That one is my favorite,” Victor commented in a low voice. “But there’s one thing missing.” He pulled out a red pen, pressing the tip of a water-soaked finger onto the nib. The ink diluted suddenly under his touch, a faint pink stain encompassing the pad of his finger. He raised his hand, an incandescent look on his face, and touched his hands to the poster, smiling as color flowed onto it.

“You look very cute when you blush,” Victor explained. “You look… what is the English word?” He thought for a moment. “Ah, yes. Radiant.”

Yuuri began to smile, but then pain seized him– a headache gripping him suddenly, squeezing until he was sure he was going to burst.

“Thank you,” he choked out. “Please excuse me for a moment.”

The ground below his feet swirled in kaleidoscopic patterns as he tried to walk as swiftly as he could to the nearest restroom.

 

 _“Your body will react badly to the medication at first,”_ _the doctor had warned._ “ _What you are doing is a major stressor on your body, and your affinity will sense that and, as a result, try and reject the medication.”_

_“What are the side effects?” Yuuri asked, his voice decrepit. He had his first reaction the day before, and he had been so grateful that it was a rest day. Victor was out exploring the town, and he had been alone in the house. The pain had lasted for seven minutes._

_“What you have just experienced is a suppression outburst, which is the first symptom of elemental suppression disorder. These outbursts will be more drawn out initially, before the medication can start taking effect. As time passes, the length of the outbursts will shorten but the intensity of the pain will increase.”_

_Yuuri gulped deliberately. “Is there any way that I can control them? While I’m traveling and such?”_

_“We’d have to put you on an extra set of painkillers but I believe that shorten the timespan that you can go without using your element.” The doctor had looked at him, concerned. “Yuuri, are you sure you don’t want to tell anyone? I know we’ve discussed potentially sharing it with your family after the Rostelecom cup, but what about Vic–”_

_“No.” Yuuri’s voice was solid. “I have the right not to tell him. He doesn’t need to worry about me. I’d like to know more about the side effects now, please.”_

_The doctor pursed his lips. “Very well.”_

 

It had started to feel like a recurring theme– waking up every morning to the nauseating sensation of feeling trapped in his own body. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed it before.

He made it to the bathroom, setting a timer for seven minutes before dropping his phone and curling up with his head between his knees, swaying back and forth and waiting until it passed. He didn’t cry. It would’ve been too obvious, and it hurt too much. Tears were getting harder to produce as his body grew more overheated, and that was salt in an already painful wound.

It was over in five minutes. Yuuri breathed shakily, hiccupping. He spoke nonsensical words, intending to get the hoarseness out of his voice, but the fatigue lingered.

He sighed. He just hoped Victor wouldn’t notice.

He didn’t.

 

“I haven’t flown coach in a while. Want to get some champagne?” Victor asked excitedly, staring around in wonder.

“Um, Victor, can I get some sleep?” Yuuri’s eyesight was already blurring– the painkiller he had taken in the bathroom had made him relentlessly tired.

“I’m surprised you can sleep in such a cramped seat!” Victor exclaimed, but he motioned to move closer regardless, sighing slowly as he shut his eyes.

 _I’m headed to China,_ Yuuri thought as he pushed the armrest separating them up and allowed Victor’s head to rest on his lap. _It’s almost too good to be true._

  


The reporters were unyielding and the flashes were making Yuuri’s head spin, a searing migraine coming on.

“Yuuri!” A voice said excitedly, and Yuuri’s head snapped to one side– that voice was incredibly familiar.

“Phichit-kun!”

Yuuri ignored the cameras and the reporters for a moment, rushing to hug his best friend. Phichit’s embrace was cool yet soft, and his cologne smelled almost citrusy, just as always. Yuuri smiled as Phichit grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back a little, taking in Yuuri’s face.

“Come with me,” the Thai skater said, and Yuuri found himself being pushed through a heavy wooden door.

“Really, Phichit?” Yuuri asked disbelievingly. “A supply closet?”

“That doesn’t matter!” Phichit said, an excited edge to his voice. “Show me!”

Yuuri sighed, but he obliged, noting that this was a good excuse to release some pent-up energy.

His hand, from the wrist up, was set alight– a bright, crystalline blue.

“Oh my goodness,” Phichit paused for a moment, and then laughed. “Even when setting yourself on fire, you still think of Victor’s perfect _blue_ eyes?” He pointed. “The flames are the exact same shade.”

“I wasn’t even thinking about that!”

“Don’t get all defensive on me, Katsuki. I know how your mind works.”

Yuuri turned scarlet.

 

“Yuuri, let’s go have hot pot!” Victor was all too happy to tug at Yuuri’s stiff fingers during a particularly draining interview and lead him to the exit.

“I’m in the middle of an interview,” Yuuri said through poorly concealed relief, a smile greeting Victor as Yuuri looked at him.

“Oh, Yakov!” Victor called out suddenly, twisting around and scampering towards his former coach. Yuuri noted, with a terrible fear squirming in his stomach, that Yakov didn’t stop to greet his former pupil. Rather, he kept walking, not stopping even when Victor pinched his alarmingly red and puffy jacket.

“What to come eat hot pot with us? Hey, why are you ignoring me?”

“Victor! Listen, I feel sick when I see you playing pretend-coach. I’d prefer if you’d only talk to me when you’re ready to plead for your return to skating. Got it?”

Yuuri was about to start profusely apologizing –an action in which words would probably escape his mouth in a mess of panicked, jagged syllables– but Victor reacted for him. He draped his hand cavalierly across Yuuri’s shoulders –a weighted, heavy feeling– and spoke.

“Yakov’s not interested. Let’s go.”

Yuuri felt like he was as easily controlled as water under Victor’s cold fingers, struggling to keep up with his brisk pace.

 

They slowed eventually, the tension lifting when Victor steadily grew more fascinated with his unfamiliar surroundings.

“Look at that fire user!” His voice was laced with curiosity as a woman on the side of the road was performing tricks with little bursts of flames, a floppy brown hat on the floor in front of her filled with a few bills and some spare change. Victor’s eyes were gleaming with adoration when he handed her a stack of bills, and even more so when she thanked him happily.

The city was like many others that Yuuri had traveled to, but this one was different.

 _That’s because you’re with Victor,_ a voice whispered to him.

He didn’t want to attribute it to something so quickly, and yet, as he watched Victor gazing out at the world with such an indescribable and exponentially rising joy. Crimson lanterns were strung up on many storefronts, weaving in and out of merchandise, splaying out light into the street in tiny circular areas, bleeding into one another like venn-diagrams.

Victor’s eyes reflected the light fluidly as he moved his head from one side of the street to another, the weight of his hand heavy on Yuuri’s hip as he pulled him close, almost protectively.

“Victor…” Yuuri said hesitantly.

“Yuuri?” Victor immediately directed his gaze toward Yuuri, his grip getting more firm as he stared down at him inquisitively. “Do you need something? Is anything wrong?”

Yuuri’s breath caught somewhere between his throat and chest. “No, nothing. I… I’m very happy that you’re my coach.”

Victor paused for a moment. “Me too,” he said at last, an odd sort of tone to his voice.

 

The spell was broken as a restaurant’s storefront caught Victor’s eye.

“Look, Yuuri!” They entered the restaurant, giggly and happy.

The food was served to them at a rapid pace, and Victor was jubilant, picking up a piece of shrimp delicately before turning his attention to Victor.

“You’re not eating the shrimp?” he asked, concerned.

“It’s right before the competition, so I want to avoid raw food.”

Spoken words grew sparse quickly as Victor focused on his food, and Yuuri began to feel queasy, the heavy and humid air coming from the kitchen doors escaping into the dining area.

“Yuuri?” A voice said happily.

“Phichit-kun!” Yuuri beamed, waving him over.

“So this is where you were eating,” Phichit’s eyes gave Victor a brief glance interestedly, but then focused back on Yuuri, and Phichit’s lips twitched, threatening laughter.

 

“Hi!” Victor said sweetly, waving slightly at the Thai skater.

“Oh, hello,” Phichit responded excitedly, trying to stifle a smirk. “But talk about a coincidence. Oh, can I invite Ciao Ciao?”

“Huh?” Yuuri’s skin heated.

“You want to see him, don’t you?”

Yuuri gave him a look that was sobering, and yet his distraught demeanor didn’t seem to affect Phichit. “Not really…” he said as a badly worded request.

 

Phichit didn’t quite get the message, as approximately ten minutes later, Celestino was sat across from Yuuri, politely rejecting Victor’s shrimp.

“It’s really good!” Victor was obviously tipsy, water gushing out from his hands as he held the shrimp out to Ciao Ciao, who had moved back,  distinctly looking uncomfortable, his own hands pooling water.

Leo and Guang-Hong arrived, and by this point, Victor was more than tipsy– he had had far too much wine for a person of his stature.

“Victor’s had way too much to drink,” Yuuri explained heatedly. His eyes widened as Victor, now shirtless and extremely wet, wrapped his arms around him.

“Let’s all go to a hot spring,”Victor slurred. “Hot spring… Hasetsu hot springs– great place!”

Yuuri vaguely comprehended camera flashes.

“What are you saying? Hey, don’t strip!”

Victor had completely soaked their booth, and Phichit wasn't helping at all.

“No one else can evaporate his water,” he said between shutter noises on his phone, “You’ll have to wake him up and convince him to do it.”

 

They got out of the restaurant eventually, Yuuri deeply apologizing to the waitress as Victor leaned heavily on his shoulder. Yuuri staggered under the brunt of Victor’s half-asleep gait, but he managed to push him into a taxi eventually.

“ _Yuuri!!!_ ” Victor giggled. “You're so _handsome!_ ” He laughed again and leaned closer, as if he wanted to tell Yuuri a secret. “Yuuri?” he whispered. “Come closer– I need to ask you something.”

Yuuri’s fists tightened with anxiety. “What is it?”

Victor leaned close, his cool breath tickling the shell of Yuuri’s ear. “I think you have a _secret,”_ he teased, “and you're not telling me.”

Yuuri stiffened. “Victor, I– what is it?”

“Shh…” Victor’s pupils dilated as he gazed at Yuuri’s face. “Don't tell Yuuri that I know, okay?”

There was a beat of aching silence, and then Yuuri found his voice. “I won't,” he promised.

“I think Yuuri…” Victor coughed lightly. “I think he’s a _prince_.”

Yuuri breathed deeply, and then laughed hard. “You’re drunk– _thank_ _goodness,_ Victor.”

“Stop laughing at me,” Victor crossed his arms and pouted. “This is serious!”

“Yes, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Yuuri reigned in the urge to chuckle and failed at an attempt to make a straight face.

Victor put a hand over his heart dramatically. “How can anyone be that beautiful and not be royalty?”

Yuuri turned his face to the moonlit  window and smiled privately. “I don't know.”

When he turned back, Victor eyes lit up with recognition. “Yuuri!!” Victor tackled him in a hug. “You're back!”

“Yes, I’m back.” Yuuri noticed that the water user was freezing, so he heated up his hands and traced Victor’s arms lightly.

Victor sighed happily. “That’s better,” he muttered sleepily.

“You're welcome, Victor.”

 

Yuuri didn't feel like sleeping after he carried Victor to bed (He had blushed heavily when Victor clung to him like a bride in the hotel lobby, eliciting a couple of cheers from Phichit and a few stares from everyone else.)

 

The room was quiet, save for the white noise of the street finding its way through the windows.  Yuuri knew he shouldn’t, but he decided to take a walk. His Mandarin was passable and he had a map of nearby places, so he slipped into a pair of comfortable shoes and headed out, giving Victor’s sleeping form one last glance before the door lightly clicked shut.

The streets were deserted, as he expected, and the air was mildly cooler than it had been when they walked in.

What captured Yuuri’s attention the most, however, was the syrupy stillness of the air, as if it were almost dead. Yuuri shivered uneasily, but he kept walking.

He hadn’t even noticed the ice rink until a loud thud made him snap his head to the right.

“Sorry,” a girl said in Mandarin, dropping an array of security cameras into the trunk of a car.

Yuuri tried his best to read the sign that was hanging above their heads.

“An ice rink?” he asked tentatively, his tongue slightly uncomfortable with the new language.

“This was the last night this rink was open,” she explained. “I have to dismantle everything before I leave.”

“If you don't mind…” Yuuri hesitated for a moment. “I could help empty out the rink?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Fire user, are you? I was going to hire a few to melt the ice tomorrow.”

Yuuri breathed heavily, before deciding on a sentence. “I’ll do it for free, and I promise I can get it done faster than anyone you’d hire.”

The girl set her hands on her hips. “Forgive me if I seem a little skeptical– no one ever offers to do free work. What do you want in return?”

Another pause, as Yuuri weighed out his options. “I want to borrow a pair of skates, and I want an hour on the ice.”

Reacting to his request, the girl’s mouth fell open. “You ice skate? A fire user?”

Yuuri laughed bitterly. “It's a long story, and I’d really appreciate if you didn't tell anyone.”

She looked at him silently, before turning to open the squeaky gate to the rink doors. “You have my word.”

Yuuri smiled appreciatively. “Thank you,” he said.

“Do you mind if I watch?” she asked as Yuuri laced his skates. “I won't mind if you wobble a little– I've always wanted to see a fire user try ice skating.”

Something in the back of Yuuri’s mind wanted to say that he didn't mind, but a stronger gut feeling made him decline her request.

Thankfully the girl wasn't too upset about it, and she said that she would make herself busy in the back rooms for a while.

“Don't forget to melt the ice when you're done!” she called on her way out.

Yuuri sighed. Finally, he was alone. He stood up with ease– a wave of comfort easing itself down the back of his neck for the first time since the trip started.

He stilled for a moment, concentrating on cooling down. Then he stepped onto the ice.

It was freeing in a sense that was indescribable, and Yuuri laughed giddily as he did a step sequence from one of his older programs. Everything was going well until he attempted a triple axel– the takeoff was perfect but Yuuri seized in the middle of the second rotation, falling quickly to the ground.

He wasn't hurt, but he was in immense, searing pain– a suppression outburst had begun.

Yuuri controlled himself, but not well– ice was already starting to melt around him. His body heaved with his wretched, silent sobs, but the tears wouldn't come.

“Hey! Are you okay?” The girl was back, and she ran onto the ice, but slowed as she noticed the melting ring of ice around him. “What can I do?” she called out.

He couldn't respond. He felt as if some invisible force was tearing away at his very being, ripping him apart from the insides. Splayed across the ice, he saw the girl reach for her phone.

“Don’t call!” he choked out.

Four minutes passed, and Yuuri stopped shaking.

“What can I do?” she asked again. “Call an ambulance?”

Yuuri breathed slowly. “That won't be necessary,” he whispered, “but I need you to get off the ice.”

“Are you su–”

_“Right now.”_

She complied, and Yuuri stirred.

The fire wasn’t hotter than anything he’d ever produced in the past, but the results were still intense. Fire poured out of his body, immediately making the ice hiss and shift in response. He lay crumpled on the ground, like a bird that had its wings broken, and heaved, dry sobs bursting their way out of his chest.

The ice had been melted in seconds, but the brief lapse of pain that came with it had been achingly relieving.

“Uh, I can take care of the water,” the girl placed her hand on the now-wet concrete. The empty rink dried. “Do you want me to take you home?”

Yuuri nodded as he stood up, and the charred remains of his skates fell onto the ground. “There's a hotel,” he winced, noticing the crackly lilts in his voice. “A hotel, a few streets away from here.”

They walked back in silence. When Yuuri stopped in front of the hotel, the girl’s eyes widened.

“This– this is the hotel where all the figure skaters are staying for the Cup of China!” Her head whipped around forcefully towards him. “No way.”

He nodded solemnly.

_“No way.”_

“Give me your email, and I'll get you tickets, if you want them.”

“I already have tickets, but who…?” She studied his face closely– something she hadn't been able to do in the dismantled ice rink or the dimly lit streets. “It can't be– you're…”

“Katsuki Yuuri,” he said dryly. “I’d really appreciate if you didn't anyone about tonight.”

She assured him she wouldn't. “Swear on the memory of the ice rink,” she joked.

He was about to head inside when she called out.

“Hey, Katsuki!”

He turned.

“I'm proud of you.”

He smiled faintly. “Thank you.”

Victor was sleeping as soundly as ever when he returned. Yuuri wanted so desperately to flop onto the bed and join him, but he had one last task to do.

The purple pills looked almost black in his hand as he popped the container open.

The doctor had expressly told him only one pill a night, but he had been following that for weeks with only subtle changes in the pain he was experiencing. Tonight had been an example of that– he had done everything right and he had still had a suppression outburst.

He stared at the palm of his hand for a long time.

 _If I just take two tonight…_ he thought. _How bad could it be?_

 

The morning came, and it felt raw and unwarranted, like an ache that settled in the crook of his neck and wouldn't go away. Yuuri sat up abruptly when he felt his arms being tugged at.

“Ow!” Victor groaned as he fell off Yuuri’s legs, his hands clutching the part of his forehead where their heads had collided.

“I'm sorry,” Yuuri yawned. “What time is it?”

“Oh, Yuuri…” Victor rolled over on the bed, still gripping his head. “How you wound me so…”

Yuuri laughed, and he glanced at the alarm clock. “We have to go now!”

“You try getting up on time with a hangover,” Victor moaned.

Yuuri beamed much too artificially, teasing the man sprawled on the bed.

“Hey, no one forced you to drink. Now,” –he ripped a blanket away from Victor– “ _let’s go_.”

Victor got to his feet, albeit slowly, his hair falling over his eyes. “Your wish is my command.”

 

“Hey, did you see the photo Phichit-kun upped? That was pretty risqué.”

Yuuri’s ears picked up on the conversation, and he immediately checked his phone. A flash of heat found its way into his cheeks.“Phichit-kun!”

“Sorry!”

 _Now they’ll think I was fooling around before the competition. If I mess up now…_ Yuuri felt the contents of his stomach shift uneasily, churning like an ocean on a stormy night.

Before he had time to dwell on his anxieties any further, Yuuri felt a hand grab him roughly, and he gasped harshly.

“Yuuri, why didn’t you invite me?”

 

“Chris! How’s it going?” Yuuri had never felt so relieved to hear Victor’s voice.

“I’m not motivated without you.” Chris grabbed Victor’s tie, pulling down until he had soaked the entire length of the fabric.

“You’re always like that at the start of the season,” Victor countered, drying it as he smirked.

 

It felt like reality was surrounding Yuuri but he was in an air bubble that separated him from the others. To him, it was almost like the figure skating world was sending a clear message: _look but don't touch._

“Victor! Are you really a coach now? Just split up with him already.”

Victor smiled sweetly at whoever made that comment, saying nothing, and somehow that stung more than any of it – the rejection from the rest of the world, from his fellow skaters, the earth-shattering pain that his own body was feeding him– it was this that was paramount. It dug into the depths of his mind and pulled out his insecurities and urged them forward.

“Yuuri, the sin of keeping Victor to yourself is grave.”

 _Well,_ Yuuri thought, _no one better to make a grave mistake than a dying man._

  


“Group 1 in the Men’s Single Short Program is about to take the ice.”

Yuuri bent his fingers backward as far as they could go, listening for the soft _crack_ of his knuckles, vaguely registering the crowd cheering for Phichit as he entered the rink.

 _He’s made the music his own,_  Yuuri thought happily.

 

_People who want to see Victor skate will never be satisfied with my skating. I want to be hated as the man who took Victor from the world._

Yuuri was pacing, and he knew that Victor knew something was off.

His theory was confirmed when he felt a hand on his shoulder, a brief sensation of coolness, and then a muttered apology as Victor dried him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Yuuri said nothing, locking eyes with Victor, pouring everything he wanted to say in his gaze. After a pause, Victor blinked slowly, and he seemed to understand.

“Okay,” he said with a sense of finality. He went to stand by Chris as Yuuri resumed pacing.

 

Victor took Yuuri’s hand as they announced his name over the loudspeakers, pressing his lithe fingers over Yuuri’s, rubbing gently.

“The time to seduce me by picturing pork cutlet bowls and women during your skate is over. You can fight with own personal charm.” He squeezed Yuuri’s hand, giving him a flicker of a smile. “You can envision it just fine, can’t you?”

 

Yuuri didn’t know what madness had seized him, but he leaned forward and send a pulse towards Victor– more intense than ever before, but the coolest one he had ever managed before.

“Don’t ever take your eyes off me.”

With renewed vigor, Yuuri glided over the cool ice to the center of the rink. As a result of the extra pill he had taken the night before, he felt in control, power pulsing through his fingertips.

The music began, and he easily breezed through his performance elements.

_They can laugh at me all they want. They can think it’s not like me. But everyone really wants to know the new me, don’t they?_

His step sequence was spectacular, and he knew it. He couldn’t help but smile for a split-second.

His first jumps, including his quad Salchow, were perfect.

_I’m the only one that can satisfy Victor. I’m the only one in the world who knows Victor’s love. I’ll prove that now._

His next combination was stellar, and as he landed it, Yuuri felt a rush of adrenaline.

He stumbled to the kiss and cry, feeling more alive than anything else, his heart swelling with joy.

“Yuuri, did that feel great?”

“Well, I was hoping everyone else felt great watching me.” Yuuri felt a faint blush creep onto his cheeks. He pressed a finger to his face, feeling the heat building up under his fingers.

“And we have his short program score: 106.84! A new personal best! He’s currently in first place!”

Victor beamed, his eyes crinkling with delight.

“Of course they’d feel great watching a performance like that. You’re the best student.”

Yuuri looked back at him. “Thank you,” he said, and he meant it more than anything else in the world.

 

Chris was up next, but, now that Yuuri was finished performing, he didn’t feel any anxious.

Victor slipped his arms around Yuuri. Yuuri didn’t know if he was imagining it, but he could feel Victor’s heart beating– slow and loud.

“He said he wasn’t finding motivation, but Chris never goes into a major slump. Today, he’s really going all-out on sex appeal.”

Chris finished, and it felt like only a few seconds had passed by.

“I guess today’s sex appeal award goes to Chris. The ice looks soaking wet.”

Chris placed fifth, and Yuuri didn’t quite understand what that meant until he saw Victor spill water all over the floor.

“Huh? Then am I... “

 

“At the end of the men’s short program here at the Cup of China, Katsuki Yuri from Japan is in first place!”

Yuuri breathed in slowly, pushing away the heat pooling in his chest, and it felt like the air had cooled around him.

First place.

Yuuri breathed out.

It felt good.

Victor was giddy on the way back to the hotel– so much so that they were kicked out of their cab because he was flooding it.

“I’m so sorry,” Victor said to the driver, still smiling, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

After the man had sped off angrily, Victor giggled.

“Victor,” Yuuri said, trying to scold him, “You could have at least _tried_ to be more serious.”

“You know what, Yuuri,” Victor turned to him, a radiant expression on his face, “I don’t think you’re mad at me for that. I think you think it’s funny too.”

Yuuri tried not to smile. “No…” He laughed. “Okay, maybe it’s a little funny.”

Victor spun around happily, spraying water everywhere. “I knew it!”

Yuuri snorted. “Let’s walk home, okay?”

Victor threw his arms out, still twirling. “Anything you say! You’re in first place, after all!”

A light, fluttering feeling washed Yuuri’s nerves away. “Yes,” –he ran a hand through his hair and smiled shyly. “I guess I am.”

  


By the time night fell and Victor was sleeping calmly next to Yuuri, the nerves had come back, but they felt _separate_ from him, in a way. Carefully ensuring that Victor was actually asleep, Yuuri conjured up a fiery figure in the palm of his hand. He made it perform his entire routine, took two pills, and threw his head back onto the pillow, waiting for his body to sleep.

This feeling lingered until the morning to no avail.

 

“Yuuri, you haven’t slept, have you?” They were already at the rink far too early– Yuuri had wanted to watch other athletes perform.

“I- I- I did! A little bit, anyway.”

He started to protest when Victor grasped his hand and took him back to the hotel.

They had barely gotten through the door of their room when Victor pulled on Yuuri’s clothes and tucked him into bed. Victor gently slipped a blindfold on him and gave him clear instructions.

“Nap until this evening’s event starts. It’ll be fine. I always slept in until the last minute before competitions, too.”

He stretched himself over Yuuri, leaning into him comfortably.

“Victor! Did you set an alarm?” Yuuri asked, panicked.

Victor murmured something quiet as a response, then fell asleep quickly. Yuuri’s breath hitched, but he closed his eyes anyway, telling himself to calm down.

 _Victor Nikiforov is asleep on me,_ Yuuri thought. _Is this a dream?_

 

“We’re at the third event of the Grand Prix Series, the Cup of China. The men’s singles free skate is about to start!”

Yuuri was only half-listening. He was more focused on trying to open his water bottle.

“It won’t open...” he muttered to himself, grunting with effort as the cap’s grips dug into his skin.

Victor caught on almost immediately. “Yuuri,” –his voice was alarmingly calm– "were you unable to take a nap?”

“I did nap! I did!” Yuuri tried his best to convince Victor, but he wasn’t falling for it.

“I forbid you from doing jumps in the six-minute warm up,” Victor said suddenly.

“What?! I can’t just not do jumps! I need to–”

“That’s an order from your coach, Yuuri.” Victor’s voice had an air of finality, and Yuuri knew there was no point in defying him, at least verbally.

 

But he tried a jump anyway, against Victor’s advice, and was punished with the cool ice on his face. A mistake. He felt his skates heat up and had to make eye contact with Victor to feel cool enough again.

“Let’s hope skater Katsuki is alright,” a voice boomed out from loudspeakers in the stadium. Yuuri’s shoulders drooped as he left the ice.

 

They were in the back hall when Yuuri fell apart, panicking about his missed jump. Victor tried to comfort him as best as he could, but it was apparent that he had no idea what he was doing.

“Well, it’s common for skaters to nail something they flubbed during practice!” He caressed the side of Yuuri’s face, cooling and soothing the angry red patches that covered his cheeks.

 

Guang-Hong was first, and he landed all his jumps in the first half.

Yuuri panicked, turning off all the televisions in the hall. He sat on a plastic chair and started breathing heavily, sweat beading on the back of his neck. He felt Victor’s eyes on him, but the older man had made no indication that he was going to do something.

 _He’s disappointed,_ Yuuri thought. _He’s disappointed that he ended up with me._

Yuuri stopped himself and started stretching during Chris’s set, but the panic returned after a few moments. He heard the crowd cheer as Chris landed another perfect jump.

“Yuuri, let’s warm up in a different spot.” Victor practically dragged him away.

Yuuri vaguely registered the cool temperature of Victor’s cool hands permeating through Yuuri’s jacket. He led Yuuri to the stairwell, and then to the parking lot under the stadium.

 

“Victor,” –Yuuri’s voice was crackly– “what are the current standings?”

“O-Okay, Yuuri.” Victor shifted nervously. “First, let’s take deep breaths.”

The crowd above them cheered again– Yuuri knew that Phichit was performing, and suddenly his veins seemed to turn into small snakes, writhing uneasily. Yuuri was sure that the only thing preventing him from setting himself ablaze was the extra dosage of medication that he took.

It felt like Victor knew exactly what he was thinking. He cupped Yuuri’s ears protectively– almost angrily.

“Don’t listen!” His eyes roamed Yuuri’s face frantically, like he was searching for something. Yuuri stared back at him, noticing that his ruffled silver hair was rapidly darkening– water was seeping its way out of Victor’s scalp.

“V-Victor?” Yuuri clasped Victor’s arms and gently moved his silver hair back into place, daring to heat his hand the tiniest bit. “It’s almost time. We need to get back.”

He felt Victor ease his tense shoulders by a fraction and took that as an indication to leave him and walk back.

“Yuuri?”

He turned to see Victor again. His white skin looked stark against the parking lot’s dark background. It almost appeared as if he was a ghost, and his expression matched his aura.

Victor opened his mouth to speak and then halted again. He stepped closer and spoke, finally, his words reverberating through the lot.

“If you mess up this free skate and miss the podium, I’ll take responsibility by resigning as your coach.”

There was a jarring lull– a pull from the back of Yuuri’s skull, pushing forward to the brims of his eyes.

He was crying, after months.

In some ways, it was relieving that his body could actually manage to produce tears at his stage of illness, but there was an overarching sense of dread– a tremor that was turning into an earthquake.

“Why would you say something like that, like you’re trying to test me?” He sobbed loudly, hot tears making a path to the ground.

“Sorry, Yuuri.” He registered Victor coming closer, albeit hesitantly. “I wasn’t being serious.”

Yuuri ignored the apology. “I’m used to being blamed for my own failures! But this time I’m anxious because my mistakes would reflect on you too! I’ve been wondering if you secretly want to quit!”

Victor’s expression morphed into something like surprise. “Of course I don’t! You kn–”

“I know!” Yuuri suddenly wanted to get out. He wanted to run away and never look back. Victor was trying to console him, but he was so overwhelmed that he didn’t want to register anything.

“I’m not good with people crying in front of me,” Victor admitted. “Should I just kiss you or something?”

“No! Just have more faith than I do that I’ll win!” Yuuri watched Victor’s eyes widen. “You don’t have to say anything. Just stand by me!”

 

They returned to the hall, hand in hand, creating a split in the sea of reporters and athletes alike.

The stadium was colder than Yuuri had ever felt before, but his body felt warm under his Japan jacket. Too warm.

 _It’s just the nerves,_ he told himself. _Just focus._

 

Yuuri wiped his nose with some tissues, breathing in slowly as he handed them to Victor. Some unexplainable impulse made him drop the napkins on purpose. As Victor reached down to catch them, Yuuri poked the top of Victor’s head, which was still slightly damp. Yuuri let it linger on his finger for a moment before drying it himself.

Taking one last look at Victor’s porcelain face, he turned and skated to the center of the ice.

“We now have our last skater on the ice. Katsuki Yuri, in first place after his first program. His music is Yuri on Ice.”

 

The music started and on the first beat Yuuri felt an ache start in his chest.

 _Not now,_ he urged. _Please, not now._

His first jump came much too soon. He managed a successful quad toe combination, and he silently thanked Victor for making him practice it until it became almost like muscle memory.

_Better than I expected._

He felt like crying again as a pang of anxiety crept its way into his thoughts again.

_Victor’s too inexperienced as a coach. It’s not like my mental weakness started just now. He should be prepared for this much. Stupid Victor!_

It had felt like something had snapped within him, something pushing through the pain and concentrating on the jumps.

His next few jumps went well, but he touched down on his triple axel when the pain in his chest ramped up exponentially, filling his body with what felt like poison.

Yuuri knew that sometimes his anxiety created hypothetical situations that would never happen in reality, but at that moment in time, he could only think one thing.

_This could be it._

He had a successful triple flip, but he was genuinely feeling like this was the last performance that he would ever give.

_If this is the end of my figure skating career, I might as well make it good. I wonder how Victor would react if I made the last quad a flip instead of a toe loop._

_I over-rotated, but I’m not as tired as I should be, given I haven’t slept and that I’m having a suppression outburst._

It felt like an invisible force was guiding him– he breezed through his components.

_I want this to be meaningful. I want Victor to remember this. I can surpass Victor’s wildest imagination!_

With a quick intake of breath, he jumped. The ice soothed his heated skin momentarily as he fell doing his quad flip –what he thought would be the last jump of his career– and he stood back up gracefully in his final pose.

 

He looked at Victor desperately when he finished. Victor’s hands were over his face, so Yuuri couldn’t make out what his expression was.

_Is he crying? Is he mad? Which is it?_

Suddenly, Victor’s back straightened and he ran to entry of rink. Yuuri caught on and stumbled his way there happily, ignoring the pulsing of heat from his heart.

“Victor! I did great, right?”

 

Victor didn’t say anything– instead, he lunged forward. Yuuri barely had time to reign in his fire before Victor crashed into him, leaning in towards Yuuri’s face.

The kiss was brief yet intense. To Yuuri, it felt like a story that he was yearning to hear– a wave of freshwater surrounding him, lifting him up towards the sun’s warmth.

His back hit the ice hard, but Victor’s hand had cradled his head.  

 

“This was the only thing I could think of to surprise you more than you’ve surprised me.” Victor’s smile made Yuuri like the world was rewarding him after years of suffering.

“Really?” He couldn’t help but laugh, staring into Victor’s eyes– closer than they had ever been before.

 

In the end, Yuuri had won silver, with Phichit placing first. Standing up on the podium, he felt like fainting, but he kept a smile plastered onto his face, stumbling into Victor’s arms after the ceremony was over.

Thankfully, like usual, Victor did most of the talking during interviews, but Yuuri just wanted it to end. He was fighting the urge to vomit, and his head felt heavy, like cotton pads had been placed under his skull.

“Now that Yuuri can do a quadruple flip, he’ll definitely win at the Rostelecom Cup and advance to the Grand Prix Final. I’m looking forward to going to Russia as his coach.” Victor leaned back casually, the cavalier speech enrapturing the reporters.

“Victor,” Yuuri said in a small voice. “Can we go back to the hotel now? I’m very tired.”

“Of course, Yuuri.” Victor straightened Yuuri’s jacket, zipping it up to the base of his neck. Victor’s eyes sparkled like sapphires. “Anything for you.”

 

The night was black and wet. Rain poured down from the sky as soon as the competition had ended, fat droplets of water landing on roofs and slipping down onto the pavement.

“Let’s catch a cab, Yuuri!” Victor raised his voice as a clap of thunder boomed out.

“No, Victor,” Yuuri called back. “I want to walk. Please? It’s not far.”

“Alright.” Victor motioned to the soaking wet street. “Just stay dry, okay?”

Yuuri said nothing.

They walked for a few paces, just listening to the sound of water hitting the ground, when Victor noticed that Yuuri was wet– the rain seeping its way into his jacket and beading on his face.

“Dry yourself, Yuuri,” Victor requested. “I don’t want you getting sick.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Yuuri responded.

“If you want, I can dry–”

“No, Victor, it’s fine. I want this.”

And he did. Yuuri felt the rain cool his skin, and, though he knew it was an impossibility, he thought that the colder he got, the better his insides would feel. His chest felt like a muscle that had just cramped: sore, painful, and at risk of relapsing.

“If you say so,” Victor shrugged and closed his eyes for a moment. After a second, Yuuri saw Victor’s water shield lift. Victor allowed himself to get wet.

“You didn’t have to, honestly.” Yuuri flushed, embarrassed.

“It’s fine,” Victor winked, a raindrop tumbling off his long eyelashes. “I want this.”

Yuuri laughed and slipped his hand into Victor’s. “Let’s get you home.”

 

Slipping into a loose T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants felt like heaven after Yuuri took his shower. He was still feeling queasy, but he figured that resuming his normal medication schedule would take care of that.

The fluffy red towel that he had used to dry his hair was draped over a rack, and, in hindsight, he was glad that it was red– it had been useful when he coughed up blood.

The blood felt slick and acidic in his mouth, seemingly unending. He gripped the sides of the sink, knuckles turning white as he heaved into the basin.

Victor knocked on the heavy wooden door. “Yuuri? You okay in there?”

Yuuri took a moment to breathe– it tasted like salt. He rinsed his mouth. “I’m fine, Victor! Just feeling a little queasy after all the stress of these past few days!”

“Oh,” Victor’s voice sounded lighter. “Well, I asked the hotel staff if we could go up to the terrace– it has a roof so we wouldn’t get in the rain.”

“Sure,” Yuuri called back as he was washing his hands. He wiped his mouth on the towel and threw it away; at that point, it was unsalvageable.

He swung open the door and was startled to find that Victor was still standing there, just waiting for him.

“Are you sure that you’re alright?” he asked.

Yuuri sighed. “Yes, Victor.”

Victor gave him a look.

Yuuri’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, you got me. Is it okay if we stay in tonight?”

“That’s perfectly fine with me,” Victor said. “As long as we order in and watch one of those nature documentaries that come on TV. I’ve never had time to watch one.”

“Deal,” Yuuri responded. “And let me tell you– through college, I must’ve seen about a hundred of those documentaries with Phichit. I can tell you that there’s nothing more fascinating than zebras in the wild.”

Victor’s eyes lit up. “Sounds fascinating!” He plopped onto the bed, messing up the sheets as he rolled around and stretched.

 

Victor ended up falling asleep twenty minutes into the third documentary, his legs intertwined with Yuuri’s and his head resting softly between Yuuri’s chest and stomach. Yuuri watched him sleep for a minute, noting that Victor’s hands –pressed flat against his left cheek– made him look serene.

Yuuri sighed and switched off the television. He got up and Victor made a little noise of complaint. “Come back,” he muttered.

“Soon,” Yuuri whispered.

Yuuri slipped into the bathroom with his phone.

He made the call quickly.

The doctor was understanding, yet disappointed. “You can’t be so foolish as to overdose on medication,” he reprimanded Yuuri. “It has powerful components. It’s a miracle that you made it through your programs. Come home, and come home quickly.”

“Yes sir,” Yuuri responded, and he cut the phone.

 

He felt suddenly claustrophobic, so he fumbled with the pill bottle, slipped a pill into his hand, and stepped out of the bathroom.

Victor’s sleeping form was under a few white sheets, but Yuuri could still make out the slow and rhythmic rising and falling of his chest.

His pill looked white in the moonlight that was streaming in from the window. Everything was quiet, save for the soft hum of the heating unit. Yuuri felt almost at peace until he had to take the pill– he pushed it to the back of his throat and swallowed.

At once, he felt like he was going to pass out. He took a shaky step forward, but nearly fell because of the effort. He landed on the bed simply because it was close enough.

Victor mumbled something in his sleep and pulled Yuuri closer to him.

Yuuri gasped, his entire body buzzing horribly, a liquid headache attacking the center of his forehead.

“Yuuri…” Victor whispered. “Get some sleep– our flight to Japan is tomorrow afternoon.”

Yuuri tried to make a noise of agreement but it came out as a squeak.

“Are you okay?” Victor slurred, his eyes still closed.  

Yuuri opened his mouth and then closed it again. Lying to Victor was another pill that he had to take, no matter how painful.

“I’m perfect. Go to sleep, Victor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if this feels like another filler chapter– I'm trying to create a huge build-up and I keep pushing back the main thing that I want to write (for dramatic effect but also to follow the timeline of the actual anime) 
> 
> thank u for reading I appreciate it very much 
> 
> (((and I l o v e comments so pls do that thx)))
> 
> here's [my tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/) come talk


	7. episodes 8 and 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> follows eps 8 +9. not the climax chapter, but I wanted to maintain the timeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am alive! I thought I would update this a lot sooner tbh. this chapter is probably not what you're expecting. it used to be a lot longer, but I cut it in half, essentially. the second part of this that I wrote will go in the next chapter. which means that hopefully you'll get at update closer to next week rather than next year (whoops). it's filler, but I thought you might enjoy aspects of it. woo!
> 
> you may have also noticed that I now have a set amount of chapters for this fic! hmm...
> 
> comments are much appreciated!!! don't be mean pls I'm tired and emo
> 
> pls love me [on tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)

“Yuuri!” His mother’s voice cut through the air, clear as glass. “You’re home!” She beamed as she looked up from the front desk of the onsen. She looked different, a physical representation of the strange feeling that Yuuri always had after coming home from a foreign place. “I’m so proud of you!”

“Thank you,” Yuuri said, his shoulders slumping suddenly, a feeling of great weight pressing against the place where his back met his neck, the anxiety curling itself into a ball there. “I’ve missed you.”

Her embrace felt like a blanket of warmth, soft and gentle like lapping waves against a shore of cracked earth. “You’re okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” The lie slipped easily between the cracks of his teeth, his jaw tense.

“I’m glad, my dear. But goodness–” she cupped his face with her hands, “you look so tired!”

He pulled away and checked his watch. “I know. I should really be headed out– I have an appointment.”

 

The doctor was not pleased, to say the least. Yuuri sat down and then gulped audibly.

“Now, young man, _what_ exactly were you thinking when you took two pills?”

“Look, I’m sorry, I–”

“You know what,” the doctor glanced at clipboard from above the frame of his glasses, his lips curving downward in irritation. “I don’t want to hear it.” He gave him a look. “You’re explicitly –and I do mean _explicitly_ – banned from skating for the next week.”

Yuuri started to protest, but the doctor wasn’t having it. “Yuuri, I don’t want to hear a word come out of your mouth. Not _one_.” He scribbled a prescription on a pad of paper. “Take these vitamins twice a day. No skipping and no overdoses. This means you now have one pill to take in the morning, two pills in the evening.”

“Yes sir.” Yuuri swallowed again. He didn’t know how he was going to get out of skating for seven long days.

 

“Victor, I’m sick. I can’t skate.”

“What?” Victor looked down at him and Yuuri subconsciously sank himself a little more into his bedsheets.

“I just–” Yuuri fake-coughed as he sat up, wincing as it came out more naturally than he had anticipated. “I really just don’t feel well.”

“Do you have a fever?” Victor reached out to touch his forehead.

Yuuri internally sighed of relief. Hiking up his temperature was the one thing he could do with ease.

Victor pulled his hand back, confirming a fever, and he seemed to be even more concerned. “Yuuri, this temperature isn’t normal for a water user. Something is wrong. _Really_ wrong.” He took off his jacket and wrapped it around Yuuri’s shoulders. “Let’s get you to a doctor. Do you know anyone nearby?”

Yuuri snorted.

 

“What is the reason for your visit?” His doctor’s assistant asked, raising an eyebrow at them. Frankly speaking, Victor looked more like a wreck than Yuuri did– he was pacing, muttering things to himself, and occasionally glancing at Yuuri to make sure he was still there. It made Yuuri more anxious, and he tried his best not to burn the hem of Victor’s heavy brown jacket.

“Uh…” Yuuri tapped his foot. “I’ve got... a fever sort of thing?”

The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “A fire user having a high body temperature? A grand surprise.”

Yuuri’s eyes widened. “Respectfully, please keep your voice down.”

“Oh, he doesn’t– oh.” Blush painted her cheeks as she apologized, fingering the edge of her clipboard clumsily.

Yuuri shifted nervously. “It’s fine, just please– not again.”

The doctor opened the office doors. “Yuuri, it’s nice to see you again. Not having any more problems, I hope?”

Victor looked over and stopped pacing. “ _More_ problems? Yuuri, did you not feel well before?” He walked over quickly, checking Yuuri’s temperature again. “Oh my goodness, were you unwell during the Cup of China? I’m so sorry– I shouldn’t have been so hard on you– I’m so _sorry_.”

“Victor, Victor, Victor, calm down.” Yuuri pressed a warm hand against Victor’s wrist, unintentionally finding his elevated pulse. “You didn’t do anything. You were perfect.”

Victor exhaled shakily. “Okay. Okay, it’s fine. You’re fine.”

Yuuri stood there, silent. After a moment he spoke. “Yes, I am.”

“Yuuri…” the doctor spoke as he shut the door after he had finally coaxed Victor to leave. “I feel that it is time that we talked about telling your mother.”

 

Yuuri’s mother didn’t take the news well, nearly causing an avalanche in the doctor’s office. “Hiding? Hiding is _killing you?_ ” She rushed up to him, gripping his hands. “Then stop!” She pushed on his palms hard, as if desperately trying to get fire to come out of them. “Stop this whole thing!” Her hands moved to his face, cupping his cheeks, her eyes wet, wild at the idea of her child in pain. “ _God_ , I don’t care if you stop skating or you continue, just _please_. Please don’t do this anymore.”

Yuuri felt his heart clench painfully. “I have to,” his voice sounded out past chapped lips. “Mom, I _have_ to do this.”

“My dear boy,” she exhaled raggedly, “there is nothing in the world that you _have_ to do.”

“But there is,” Yuuri took off his glasses, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands out of habit, even though there were no tears to wipe away. “There is.”

  


“Yuuri, how are you feeling today?” The day was gloomy, the air itself feeling clogged and tepid, but Victor’s voice as bright as an afternoon sun, permeated through the space between them.

“Not better,” Yuuri said. It was the sixth day of skipping practice. “I–” He caught the sentence between his lips before it could come spilling out. How many times had he already told Victor that he wasn’t able to skate? Yuuri’s blood froze in his veins as the forbidden thought crossed his mind, like alcohol, hazing his judgement and clouding the pain from his past, pushing him towards one resolute answer.

“You know what,” Yuuri said, pushing himself up from his position, stretching until his heard his knuckles crack faintly. “I think I should skate today.”

 

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Victor crossed his arms as he surveyed Yuuri from across the ice.

“Yes,” Yuuri said flatly. “Let’s get started, Victor.”

His warm ups felt like standing up after hours of being stagnant on a long flight. Yuuri was acutely aware of every muscle being stretched in his body, and he thought briefly of how weak his body was compared to the ice.

This was further proven when he fell on his first jump, not badly enough to be seriously injured, but badly enough to feel it for the days to come.

“Yuuri!” Victor rushed to his side. “Are you okay? Tell me what hurts!”

“I’m fine, Victor, I–” The lie turned sour on his tongue. “I think I’m not ready.”

Victor’s face was unreadable as they walked home together.

Yuuri felt like he was going to vomit, even more so after he shoved his pills down his throat.

 

Even after Yuuri could start skating, they spent many days like that, enshrouded in silence, sometimes comfortable, sometimes not. Hasetsu was a good place for Victor to find himself, Yuuri observed. He saw it in the way Victor walked in the narrow streets and in his smile when he gazed out at the ocean. Yuuri saw it in the empty bowls of katsudon and Victor’s gentle petting of street cats.

He felt so unbelievably close to Victor, and yet the air felt like it was pushing them apart– or at least, that’s how it felt to Yuuri. Sometimes he didn’t know– it was like his mind was playing tricks on him. Distance, closeness, everything felt arbitrary sometimes. How many years had he spent as an ice skater? How many practice sessions did he have alone? He had spent so many years alongside these people, these talented skaters, and yet he felt like he was watching them from miles and miles away. Why, no matter how much he accomplished, did he feel like he was good enough?

 

Victor said nothing when they left for the airport. The hotel this time was cold. Yuuri often noticed that a certain level of sophistication and the cold were often paired together, even off the ice, and even more so in Russia.

“You go ahead,” Victor said, pushing Yuuri forward gently. “I’ll check in at the front desk and handle…” He looked to the other side of the lobby. Yuuri’s gaze followed his– there was a group of reporters mulling about. Yuuri looked back at Victor and gave him a nod, and a silent appreciation passed between them.

As Yuuri pushed a button for the elevator, he thought of these silences. They were often there, permeating the air as Yuuri and Victor were in close proximity, doing little things on their own. Yuuri had a sudden realization that this didn’t feel lonely– he could almost taste it on his tongue: it was sweet.

 

He noticed Seung Gil Lee from Korea, a fellow competitor. _Unlike the Cup of China, there’s no one here I’m friendly with._ The notion made him melancholy.

They didn’t speak, and continued this uncomfortable silence until the elevator doors opened, revealing three other competitors, who were actively bickering, the loudest of them being a person Yuuri recognized as Michele Crispino.

“Hi Yuuri.” Michele’s sister Sara said to him. “Hi Seung Gil. Do you want to come with–”

“No.”

“Hey! If you’re turning a lady down, can’t you be more considerate?”

“Do I get any benefit out of being friendly with you?”

A high color rose into Sara’s cheekbones, permeating into saturated embarrassment. They all passed Yuuri as he stood there, motionless, not sure what to do. Before he could snap out of his daze, the elevator doors had closed and reopened again, revealing itself to be thankfully empty.

“Why are you sneaking around?” Yuuri lifted his head to see Yurio holding the doors open with his foot, his face sullen and apathetic.

“Yurio… Good to see you again.”

There was a pause, injected with an uncomfortable silence.

“Um, good luck to both of us in the Rostelecom Cup.”

“Huh?” Yurio looked at him with disbelief. “ You’ll suffer a miserable defeat here in Moscow. I’m going to have Victor stay here in Russia.”

Yuuri smiled at him, for there was nothing else that he could think of doing.

_Right, if I don’t rank higher than fourth in this event, I won’t make it to the Grand Prix Final.  And if I don’t, what will Victor do?_

He pushed the question away because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

 

As the first set of skaters went, Yuuri and Victor stood in the back, waiting for the warm-up for group two to be called. JJ strode up to them, saying something about Emil and a quad loop– Yuuri had headphones in, so he wasn’t really paying attention, but he felt Victor tense, a pool of water twirling in his hands.

Yuuri pulls out his headphones. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t catch that,” he said affably, trying to diffuse the tension.

“Victor did the same jump at last year’s exhibition.” JJ got closer to Victor, who kept his head help up high. “I want to see that again.”

Victor crossed his arm, letting the water dissipate in his palms. “I don’t recall.”

 

It was only when Victor was leaning down to lace Yuuri’s skates that the interaction struck Yuuri as odd.  Victor was never this cold to other skaters before– and that was when he was competing with them. The thought evaporated as Victor looked up at him. There was something powerful in his gaze: _I believe in you_.

Yuuri looked back at him with the same intensity, and he knew that Victor received a clear message of his own: _I will not disappoint_.

 

When he stepped out, the crowd was chanting Victor’s name. Yuuri felt proud of him, but there was a small sting of rejection, of the inevitable feeling of being overshadowed.

Victor waved, as oblivious as he was, and Yuuri felt the sudden urge to show Victor who he was supposed to be paying attention to.

Before he could rethink his decision, he pulled on Victor’s tie suddenly, the blue of his eyes cooling Yuuri down.

“The performance has already begun, Victor.”

“You’re right.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll show my love to the whole of Russia.”

 

He skated away, almost about to vomit with embarrassment, but he knew he had a job to do. He straightened his back and raised his chin, determined to intimidate the entire audience, including the judges. He didn’t care what they thought anymore. He knew who he cared about the most.

_If I lose at the Rostelecom Cup, this may become the last time I can skate the program with Victor at my side as my coach. Maybe no one in Russia, or even the entire world, wants me to win. Thinking that runs chills up my spine. I’m the only one who can change that world._

The skate began as any other began, and something _clicked._ Yuuri finally felt like he was as good as any water user out there– he barely felt any pain.

He almost laughed aloud with glee, but he didn’t. Instead, he _soared._ He skated like he always did– putting his entire soul into it.

“Another flawless performance following his last short program in the Cup of China!”

Victor was happy. Yuuri could tell, and not in the way that everyone else could. He felt like he could see Victor floating, glowing with happiness. “Yuuri!” he yelled, raising his hands up, water creating ribbons that were spiraling out from his fingers.

_My skating must’ve gotten my message across._

“Yuuri! That was perfect.”

After the shock had settled, Victor got down and kissed Yuuri’s right skate. Yuuri’s breath hitched, and he felt like the coolness permeated through Victor’s hands, cooling him down. He couldn’t help but smile.

When they were being interviewed, Victor grabbed Yuuri’s hand. “Look,” he whispered in his ear. “You’re in first place!”

Something broke inside of Yuuri, something that was holding him back. His eyes started to fill, after _months,_ with tears.

He had done it. He was in first.

  


The world, however, didn’t let him have his joy for long. Mari’s ringtone wasn’t different from any of his other contacts, but even before looking at his caller ID, he just felt like something was off.

“Sorry to bother you in the middle of an event, but Makkachin stole some buns, and they got stuck in his throat. We’re at the vet right now, but we’re not sure he’ll make it.” Her voice was thinly veiled panic. “What do you want us to do?”

Yuuri’s symptoms flared –an onset of his emotional panic– and he thought back to the last Grand Prix. If Vicchan was still alive and he were a coach, what would he do? What did he want Victor to do?

He thought back to Vicchan’s shrine, how the room was much too cold. No matter how much Victor’s love of ice was, it would never replace the warmth of his most loyal companion. Yuuri knew– nothing ever would stop him from regretting that he never got to say goodbye.

He turned, much more determined than he looked.

“Victor!” The man in question looked up, startled. “Go back to Japan right now. I’ll face the free skate tomorrow on my own!”

They had a terse conversation.

“I can’t.”

“But you have to go back!’

“Like I said, I can’t.” Victor put a hand on his forehead, pushing up his hair, his calloused fingers dampening his bangs.

Yuuri didn’t even perceive Yakov walking in, jumping up when Victor exclaimed, “Yakov! Thank God!”

It felt like sound was distorted when the two of them spoke, like the words were being pushed through an airtight container to reach Yuuri’s ears. Warbled and twisted as they were, Yuuri could still hear them.

“Can you be Yuuri’s coach tomorrow, for just one day?”

Every person in the room froze, Yuuri too. Yakov didn’t look angry, or even frustrated. A simple curve of his lip meant nothing to Yuuri, but –as he gauged Victor’s reaction– he could tell it meant something to Victor.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Victor seemed to melt in Yakov’s arms, and for the first time, Yuuri saw anxiety in Victor. Though he was smiling, the way he moved his fingers, the way he drew his breath, jagged and shallow– it all clicked. Victor was anxious, and Yuuri knew because he had seen it a thousand times before in the mirror.

 

Victor was suddenly pulled from Yakov, and surprisingly not by the coach himself.

“Hey idiot!” Yuri snarled. “Don’t thank him– he didn’t even say yes to your request, moron!”

Yakov’s eyes squinted, eyebrows tilting downwards as he turned to face the small Russian menace. “Yuri, I think it’s high time you go to bed.”

“But-”

“I’m sorry, did I stutter? Or do you suddenly have a hearing condition unbeknownst to the rest of us?”

Yuri reddened. “I’ll wait for you outside, Yakov.”

“Everyone else out too,” Yakov barked. “I need to speak with my protégé.”

“Not Yuuri,” Victor says. “Yuuri stays.”

 

When Yuuri came out of the shower, Victor was nowhere in sight, but Yuuri knew where to find him.

As soon as he shut the door of the hotel’s entrance to the terrace, Victor spoke, not turning around.

“I always like to sit somewhere where I can see all of the sky. I don’t know what I’m waiting for when I come here– especially at night.”

“I understand, but I don’t know either.” Yuuri pulled his feet over the ledge on as he sat down next to Victor, feeling the rough concrete through his pants. The day of the free skate was hours away, and yet Victor didn’t chastise Yuuri for staying awake.

“Do you see anything?” Victor asked.

“No,” Yuuri admitted. “Just… clouds. And fog.”

Victor smiled. “Probably light pollution.” He got up, groaning as one of his knees popped. “Both of us have a long day tomorrow. Let’s go to sleep.”

  


“Anyway, this is a crisis! Ask Yakov anything you don’t understand. If you’re in trouble, just hug him–” Victor took care to demonstrate, hugging Yuuri tightly, “–and he’ll help you. Sorry Yuuri. Even if I’m not here, I’ll always be with you in spirit.” Victor squeezed Yuuri’s hand comfortingly before leaving, glancing back one last time. And then Victor went back to Japan.

  


“It didn’t look like you exchanged any words with Coach Yakov at this morning’s public practice.” The reporters looked skeptical, their pens scribbling down shorthand before Yuuri could even speak.

“I’m fine! I’ll just do what I’ve always done in practice with Victor!” Yuuri wished that he was as confident as he sounded.

 

He skated to center ice when Yuri’s score was announced, acutely aware of his blades under his feet, of the thousands of people watching, and of his heated palms. Looking intensely down at his feet, he noticed that they were flitting in and out of focus, a hazy manifestation of his anxiety.

“Katsuki Yuuri from Japan is in second place after the short program.”

_I don’t want them to think that everything Victor’s taught me has been a waste. I have to prove that by winning. If I fail here, everything is over._

His body didn’t seem to get the message.

His first quad was popped; his second jump turned into a single.

_Crap, crap. Calm down. Calm down! How do I recover from this?_

 

He remembered Victor suddenly, an onslaught of memories displaying themselves at the forefront of his consciousness.

“Yuuri, you tend to flub your jumps when something is on your mind.”

“Starting today, I am your coach. I’ll make you win the Grand Prix Final.”

_How did he know how I felt?_

_Until Victor came into my life, I could never openly say that I’d win gold, but I never skated with the thought in my mind that I’d lose anyway. Truthfully, I wanted to win gold at last year’s Grand Prix Final too._

_I was able to come this far because Victor believed in me. If I end here without making the Grand Prix Final… No. Don’t think right now._

_Yurio looked like he’d kick the bucket on his last three-jump combo. Idiot! I have more stamina than him._

_Whether Victor were with me or not, it would feel just as tough. Keep it simple. I’m the only one who can skate this program with this much appeal._

He completed two jump combinations, the audience hissing with pleasure as he landed them cleanly.

_I’m the one who loves this program Victor and I made the most in the whole world._

_I’m not finished yet. I’ll be done when I get the gold with Victor._

His step sequence was flawless, as he and Victor had always planned, but another touched jump had him feeling as if he couldn’t possibly qualify.

 

And then it was over. He fell to his knees on the ice, breathing very heavily. “That was the toughest program I’ve done so far…” Yuuri wondered what Victor thought of the program, and if he was disappointed, staring at the TV screen with frustration that he wasn’t there.

But as of right now, he had to focus on someone else.

It was awkward and quiet sitting on the bench with Yakov. Yuuri sipped his juice.

Yakov took a deep breath, but then lost his cool, spraying water over some of the cameramen nearby. “You totally failed to take advantage of the program Vitya made for you! Why didn’t you practice for the possibility that you might flub a jump?”

 

Yuuri would usually be anxious, but something lighter replaced that feeling. _He’s just like Victor… A huge lecture at the kiss and cry._

Yuuri placed 3rd, much to the surprise of both himself and his coach. “That’s higher than I expected.”

Yuuri was silent, curling his fists into the fabric of his pants. He was live on camera in front of thousands of people– this was the wrong time to be displaying symptoms. He held on to normalcy for as long as he could, but it was no use. It felt like his heart had contracted swiftly, the suppression outburst burning its way through his consciousness melting his ability to think rationally. He was distinctly aware of the fire that was sitting under his palms, the heat searing and merciless. And suddenly, the feeling evaporated, leaving Yuuri more sore than he had been in his entire life.

“What’s wrong?”

Yuuri’s muscles were screaming in pain, but he gave Yakov a hug. “Spasibo.”

_Victor will go back to Russia soon._

In a sense, Yuuri was almost relieved, but he thought that was the anxiety feeling for him. Victor leaving him would be the most heartbreaking experience of his entire life, but there was always that lingering feeling that he was out of place. He felt like he had stolen something away from the world, and he was constantly waiting for it to take Victor back.

But it looked like Victor wouldn’t be going just yet.

_Because Michele Crispino and I have the same overall score, I can squeak into the Final because I placed second in the Cup of China._

 

No one could stop him from giving them a hug. Yuuri knew just how much a human life could be worth, and he wanted to cherish everyone’s presence for as long as he could.

 

Yuuri sat on a bench that was patchy with rust, the snow falling with such vigor that it felt like it had a purpose. He watched the streetlights and traffic signals glow brightly.

_I’m this close to the peak of my competitive figure skating career. I really want the gold now. The Grand Prix Final will be my last chance. Even if I don’t win gold, I’ll have Victor step down as coach after and–”_

He got kicked out of his seat.

“There you are, pork cutlet bowl. I had to look for you.”

“Oh, Yurio.”

“What was that earlier? Stop freaking me out. And what was that free skate, anyway? You can make the excuse that you couldn’t do your best because Victor wasn’t there, but I was in top form and earned a new personal best, only to lose to JJ again! You have no right to feel more down than me, pork cutlet bowl.”

He threw Yuuri a bag that fell onto his lap.

“You can have it. It’s almost your birthday, right?”

“Huh?” He opened it and said “Pirozkhi?”

“Eat?”

“Huh? Right here?”

“Eat!”

Yuuri obliged.

“There’s rice in this… pork cutlet and egg too. It’s a pork cutlet bowl!”

“Correct! My grandpa made them himself. Great, aren’t they?”

He smiled. “Yeah! They’re _vkusno_!”

 

There weren’t many places in Moscow that Yuuri could go unnoticed, especially that night, but he managed to find an alleyway that was far from the residents of the city. His chest soared with relief as he willed fire to come to his hands and arms in what felt like years. Ironically, the heat made him feel a cooling sensation in his nerve endings, and he had a feeling that he was finally going to be able to sleep properly after weeks.

  


The Fukuoka Airport international terminal was bustling with people Yuuri had never seen in his life, but he felt an intrinsic familiarity with being in his home country.

_I have a lot I want to tell you, Victor. What do I say first?_

He heard a sharp bark, seeing Makkachin jump up against a glass wall separating him from the arrivals entrance.

Victor was not far behind Makkachin, and as they made eye contact, Yuuri pulled down his mask and started running,. Victor started running too.

Yuuri hugged him first. Victor’s skin was cold against his.

 

“Yuuri, I’ve been thinking about what I can do as your coach from now on.”

“Me too.” Yuuri closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable. But then something snapped within him, urging him to tell Victor how he felt.

They pulled apart because Yuuri forced Victor back by his shoulders. “Please be my coach until I retire!”  
Victor smiled and pulling Yuuri’s arm off him. He kissed Yuuri’s left hand. “It’s almost like a marriage proposal.”

Yuuri smiled, hugging him again.

“I wish you’d never retire.” Yuuri opened his eyes, in disbelief that he was crying. Somehow it was only Victor that could get him to express this type of emotion, but Yuuri chalked it up to the fact that he had burned for quite a while before his flight to Japan.

“Let’s win gold together at the Grand Prix Final.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked it, even though it wasn't what you were expecting. 
> 
> if you don't know, I have a musician au called "rubato" which I will try and update soon as well!
> 
> please comment below and yell at me to write [on my tumblr](http://nikifirov.tumblr.com/)


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